Preamble

The House met at half-past Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND INDUSTRY

The Secretary of State was asked—

Market Distortions

Mr. Phil Sawford: What action he is taking against market distortions that result in consumers having to pay more for products in the United Kingdom than in the rest of the European Union. [86490]

The Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs (Dr. Kim Howells): Before I answer my hon. Friend's question, may I say what a great pleasure it is to see the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) at her new post as spokesperson for trade and industry? I am sure that it is well deserved. She has always displayed a remarkable independence of spirit. Her views and hostility to the euro, for example, make those of her leader, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), seem Solomon-like in their measured judgment.
To return to my hon. Friend's question, the Competition Act 1998 will provide a tough new regime for dealing with anti-competitive activities across the United Kingdom economy. The Government are committed to ensuring fair and vigorous competition in UK markets so that prices are set at competitive levels.
We need to know, first, whether prices are so very different. Current information is inadequate. The Government will shortly announce the start of the commissioning process for a study of international price comparisons to provide robust and up-to-date evidence of international price differences.

Mr. Sawford: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Many of my constituents in Kettering know that they are paying over the odds for many of the goods that they purchase—not just cars, but many other consumer goods. I welcome and applaud the steps that my hon. Friend is taking to give higher priority to consumers—unlike the previous Government, who talked an awful lot about market forces and competition, but failed miserably when it came to taking action in the interests of the British consumer.

Dr. Howells: We are absolutely determined that where there has been a weakness in the supply of statistics,

it will not be filled by sometimes worthy and sometimes less worthy speculation in the press about rip-off Britain and so on. When I took on my present job, I was extremely surprised to discover that there were no mechanisms for comparing prices. We are determined to put them in place so that the people of Britain know whether, in international market comparisons, they are paying higher rates than they should for the goods that they purchase.

Mr. Michael Fallon: Is not the major market distortion due to the extra burden of taxation and new regulation from the Government, which feeds directly through to consumer prices? Instead of hearing speeches about red tape, why do we not see some action from the Government to reduce the biggest burden on business, which is the Department of Trade and Industry?

Dr. Howells: I am still hacking my way through the red tape that the hon. Gentleman left when he was in government. Such comments are a bit rich, coming from a party that ran this country for 18 years, during which time car manufacturers referred to the UK as "Treasure Island." The Conservative Government did very little to drive down prices or increase competition. Our Competition Act 1998, which kicks in from March next year, will ensure that there is no price fixing and that there are no cartels and no mergers that are designed to distort markets. With increased competition, we will see prices fall.

Fiona Mactaggart: I am pleased that the Government are taking tough action on behalf of the consumer. Our achievement in getting record low inflation is the best thing that a Government can do for the consumer.
Will my hon. Friend give me an assurance that he will not allow big companies to delay and defer the process of investigation by competition authorities? The wrapped ice cream market, which for many years has given rise to concern, is currently under investigation. The major company in that market is once again doing its best to kick the investigation into the long grass. I urge my hon. Friend to make sure that that cannot happen.

Dr. Howells: I cannot comment on the investigation being conducted by the competition authorities into the ice cream market. It is an important market and a sensitive issue. However, we have engaged in talks with the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission to ensure that there are proper time limits and that those limits are assessed and adhered to with proper rigour, so that companies are not kept waiting, jobs are not put in jeopardy and the innovative efforts of companies are not sabotaged.

Mr. Nick Gibb: Does the Minister think that the massive increases in diesel duty levied by his Government, which have increased the price of diesel by 21 per cent. since the Government came to power, and which have added enormously to the cost of transporting food and consumer goods, have helped or hindered consumers in what they pay for products in the United Kingdom?

Dr. Howells: I had discussions recently with a number of companies, which told me that that increase was not a


great hindrance to prices and competition. We have an extremely efficient transportation system in the UK and it is well used. Given that the previous Government introduced the fuel escalator, it is a bit rich for the hon. Gentleman to ask such a question now.

Oil and Gas Industry Task Force

Mr. Bob Blizzard: If he will make a statement on progress made by the oil and gas industry task force. [86492]

The Minister for Energy and Industry (Mr. John Battle): The oil and gas industry task force is making good progress. We intend to finalise our proposals in July and publish a full report in September. I am confident that the work that has been done during the past few months will make a significant impact on the future prospects of the UK's oil and gas industry both at home and in export markets.

Mr. Blizzard: The establishment of the task force has been welcome, demonstrating, as it does, the Government's commitment to the offshore oil and gas industry. Does my hon. Friend agree that the main challenge facing us is to ensure that it remains economically viable to exploit the remaining 20 or 30 years'-worth of reserves which exist in marginal fields? Is it not important that investment continues to support jobs and the valuable storehouse of expertise and innovation that Britain has built up? To that end, will he urge the Chancellor to avoid taking a narrow fiscal view of the North sea tax regime and to ensure that we have a framework that will encourage further investment?

Mr. Battle: I congratulate my hon. Friend on recently forming an all-party group on the oil and gas industry. Our fiscal regime is recognised as one of the most helpful in the world, particularly at a time when oil prices have been low. The task force's role is to ensure that the 30,000 people who work offshore, and the 300,000 people throughout the industry who support it onshore, remain in employment even when the oil price is low. The key to delivering that is to consider all aspects of training, the fiscal regime, regulation and licensing and, in particular, innovation and new technologies. We obtain oil and gas in the incredibly difficult circumstances of the rough terrain in the North sea and our expertise remains world class. We continue to build on that expertise in the North sea even in a low-cost environment, and that will allow us to continue winning jobs abroad.

Mr. John Bercow: With regard to the gas industry, are the Minister and task force aware of the important fact that there is no proposed energy tax in Belgium, France, Norway or Sweden, and that that which applies in Germany carries a substantial rebate for important energy sectors? If so, will he reflect on the damage that is being done to our industry? Given that British Steel estimates that the proposed climate change levy will increase gas prices by 40 per cent. in the United Kingdom, will the hon. Gentleman tell the House when he will stop helping our competitors and start helping British businesses and British consumers?

Mr. Battle: The climate change levy proposals are out for consultation and representations are being made now.

There is much comment on their impact, some accurate, some over-hyped. I recall the 1996 and 1997 Budgets. In 1996, the Conservative Government, without any notice, slapped an intangible cost tax on the North sea which priced out precisely the developments that we wanted. It was the hon. Gentleman's Administration who made things more difficult. We have consulted and said let it be, and the industry feels that there is a good tax regime for oil and gas exploration offshore. That contrasts markedly with the previous Administration's approach. The Opposition have somewhat short memories of the damage that they did when they were in government.

Telephone Charges (Internet)

Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: If he will make it his policy to take powers to enable him to reduce telephone charges for schools, volunteer organisations and residential users of the internet; and if he will make a statement. [86493]

The Minister for Small Firms, Trade and Industry (Mr. Michael Wills): The Government's policy is to make fast and affordable internet access available as widely as possible, and competition is the best way to deliver that. It drives innovation, reduces prices and increases choice, and we are now seeing the beneficial results of that in the UK internet market.
We accept that we need to help ensure that the advantages of this liberating and empowering new technology are spread as widely as possible to those who might otherwise not be able to enjoy them. A number of initiatives have been taken. As my hon. Friend knows, Oftel is responsible for regulating the telecommunications industry. It has negotiated with the industry reduced tariff packages for schools. I understand from Oftel today that a number of operators have now agreed, in principle, to develop similar lower-priced service packages for public libraries, further education colleges, university for industry learning centres and citizens advice bureaux. Those new tariffs should be available from next year.

Mr. Mackinlay: I am almost lost for words, which is frustrating. I thank the Minister for that, but I hope that he will not put too much trust in competition to keep prices down. The rigorous and vigorous watching of cable and telecommunication providers should continue because, as more and more people seek to exploit the internet for recreational and learning purposes, it could be a licence to print money for those people unless there is intervention by the various agencies referred to and by government.

Mr. Wills: I thank my hon. Friend for such a useful question and such a useful contribution to the debate.

Business Advice Services

Mr. David Drew: What plans he has to increase the number of business advice services in rural areas. [86494]

The Minister for Small Firms, Trade and Industry (Mr. Michael Wills): In March we announced the setting up of the Small Business Service, which will provide a


strong voice for small businesses at the heart of Whitehall and help to improve the quality and coherence of the delivery of support.
The Small Business Service will be for all businesses, including those in rural areas. We envisage enhanced support for start-ups and for the self-employed, which will have a beneficial impact in rural areas. We will shortly be issuing a consultative document and I would welcome views from anyone on the special needs not currently addressed under existing provision. I would particularly welcome views from my hon. Friend, who is an authority on rural issues.

Mr. Drew: I welcome my hon. Friend's remarks and, like me, he will welcome the launch this afternoon of the rural audit conducted by the rural group of Labour Members of Parliament, which has been well-reviewed in today's press. Among the many issues that it highlights is the need for job creation in rural areas and, although we obviously congratulate the consortium of rural training and enterprise councils on the much good work that it has done, we emphasise the need for additional resources in rural areas and, in particular, more localised help and specific assistance with IT, planning and marketing. When the Minister visits my constituency tomorrow, would he perhaps make a statement on how that assistance could be brought to bear?

Mr. Wills: I am looking forward to my visit to Stroud tomorrow, and I welcome the findings of the report that my hon. Friend and his colleagues have put together, which I am sure will make a valuable contribution. We are deeply aware of the needs of rural areas, and we have made a specific commitment to rural regeneration. For example, there is an identified rural regeneration element in the single regeneration budget, and I am sure that we will not let down my hon. Friend and all our rural colleagues.

Mr. Brian Cotter: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) on her new post on the Opposition Front Bench.
The Liberal Democrats are concerned not only about the rural delivery of business services, but about their delivery nationally. A lot of public money is already spent on the TECs, Business Links, regional development agencies and many other service delivery organisations. The Department of Trade and Industry could be about to add to the confusion with the Small Business Service. As part of the consultation about the SBS, will the Minister undertake to conduct a full review of all other business services?

Mr. Wills: Of course we will do that; it is part of the process on which we have been embarked since March, when we announced the establishment of the SBS. The hon. Gentleman obviously has certain views on that and we look forward to hearing about them in more detail.

Mr. Jeffrey Donaldson: It is our experience in Northern Ireland that the rural economy has suffered significantly, particularly because of the difficulties in agriculture. Will the Department give us a commitment that it will put pressure on planners throughout the United Kingdom to facilitate change-of-use applications for redundant farm buildings,

which would make it easier to establish new businesses in the rural economy? It is our experience that people have great difficulty when applying for change of use to establish businesses and it would certainly help if the Department exerted such pressure on planners to help the rural economy.

Mr. Wills: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We know that planning can be a key issue, particularly for small businesses. We are setting up the SBS precisely because we want to make sure that the views of small businesses on that and other issues are heard clearly in Whitehall when policy is made. When the hon. Gentleman sees the consultation document he will realise how determined we are that those issues are discussed properly in Whitehall and that all policies think small first.

Mrs. Angela Browning: I thank both the Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs and the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Cotter) for their kind words. At least, I think they were kind words. I am disappointed that the Secretary of State is not present; I understand that he is in Japan, and I hope that he is securing some British business there.

Mr. John Bercow: He is scared of the hon. Lady.

Mrs. Browning: I must say that, when I was shadowing the Secretary of State as an Education and Employment spokesman, we had one or two sparring matches; but if I had to come back and haunt any member of the Government, there is no one whom I would wish to haunt more than the right hon. Gentleman. I look forward to seeing him on future occasions.
Rural businesses are very dependent on the farming community, and on its prosperity. The Secretary of State has had the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report on Milk Marque on his desk since 20 April. This does not just concern farmers; it concerns the many businesses and industries that rely on them, and desperately want to be able to process milk into viable products that we can sell in this country.
Will the Minister guarantee, on behalf of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, that an announcement will be made before the next milk selling round, which will begin in July? I know that it is on record that a statement, or an announcement, will be made before the House rises for the recess, but the timing is critical for farmers. If the announcement is not made before the beginning of the selling round, many small dairy farmers will see that day on their calendars as the day when they must decide whether to stay in farming or get out.
Will the Minister also confirm—because it is so important to rural businesses—that the announcement will be made on the Floor of the House, rather than outside?

Mr. Wills: I welcome the hon. Lady to her new responsibilities. I am well aware of the issue that she has raised—I have received representations in my constituency from farmers who are clearly concerned about the outcome—and I can tell her that an announcement will be made shortly. As I am sure she will understand, I cannot go further at this stage, but I assure her that the Secretary of State considers the issue to be very important.

Social Exclusion (Energy Policy)

Mr. Ben Chapman: If he will make a statement on the significance that energy policy has in the Government's social exclusion agenda. [86495]

The Minister for Energy and Industry (Mr. John Battle): Given that more than 5 million households in the United Kingdom are spending over 10 per cent. of their incomes on fuel bills, fuel poverty is a serious matter. It is a crucial aspect of the social exclusion agenda, and we are tackling it. I had a meeting with the industry on 18 May to press it to take action, and to develop and pool ideas for best practice. I also pressed the regulator to present a revised social action plan to deal with fuel poverty, so that all consumers—not just those who have access to good deals by means of direct debit—benefit from competition.

Mr. Chapman: Is my hon. Friend aware that Scottish Power and MANWEB—the Merseyside and North-West electricity board—have introduced pilot schemes, along with the Energy Action Grants Agency, to help low-income consumers to spread their payments and weatherproof their bills? Those organisations have distributed more than 100,000 low-energy light bulbs through Age Concern. Surely that is a serious contribution to the social exclusion agenda.
Will my hon. Friend ensure that any legislation that is introduced places a burden on the regulator to ensure that the interests of low-income consumers are promoted and protected?

Mr. Battle: I know of the scheme to which my hon. Friend refers. It includes not only specific packages for low-income families, but advice on benefits, budgetary advice and the supply of fuel on terms that give such families an extra deal: lower bills, along with fixed weekly payments at an agreed rate. That is a very good offer.
If those companies can do this, why cannot others? I know that Centrica and Help the Aged, along with the gas industry, have launched a two-year plan to combat fuel poverty, but we need to widen that best practice network. In our White Paper "A Fair Deal for Consumers", we announced that we would include in any Bill on energy regulation statutory guidance for the regulator on fuel poverty, social obligation and environmental responsibilities. We may produce such a Bill in early autumn; at this stage, I merely ask the companies to get together, to anticipate the legislation and to act now. If they do so, regulation may be lighter. Indeed, ultimately we may not need it. Companies should exercise common sense in tackling fuel poverty, rather than dismissing the poor.

Mr. Owen Paterson: One of the most dramatic ways in which to be excluded from society is to be made unemployed. Ninety-seven per cent. of goods in rural areas are transported by diesel-powered vans and lorries, and haulage businesses throughout the country are making workers redundant because of the Government's energy policies. When will they wake up to the real damage being done to real people on the ground?

Mr. Battle: I know that the main question is on fuel poverty, but I do not mind widening the debate to a

discussion of social exclusion because I remember when we were losing a company every three minutes under the Tories. I remember unemployment escalating then, not only in urban but in rural areas. A total of 400,000 new jobs have been delivered under our Government. We have a new deal to put people back into work that reaches all Britain. The hon. Gentleman's party set up the regulation mechanism for gas and electricity, according to which only price mattered. I look forward to Conservative Members' support when we introduce a Bill on energy which acknowledges that tackling fuel poverty and recognising environmental responsibilities are important to the generation of new jobs and combating social exclusion.

Mr. David Chaytor: I congratulate the Government on the work done so far on fuel poverty, but does the Minister agree that one of its key causes is the standing charge, because it is inevitable that low-income households pay disproportionately more for their gas and electricity than the rest of the population? Will he assure the House that he will continue to press the regulator to tackle the inequities of that system?

Mr. Battle: I agree with my hon. Friend about standing charges. He may know that we have already asked the regulator to examine, for example, the wide regional variations in charges. Some companies do not have a standing charge, but low-volume customers can pay a high price.
Tackling fuel poverty is complex, because it involves investing in homes to ensure that they are energy-efficient. Therefore, the energy and resources that we are putting into energy-efficiency schemes—for example, home improvement schemes—should match action to reduce fuel bills for poorer consumers.
It is unnecessary and unacceptable that people should die from cold—what is euphemistically referred to as excess winter deaths. I do not want that to appear on death certificates in the 21st century. Our combined actions can do something to tackle that.

Minimum Wage

Mr. Desmond Swayne: If he will make a statement about the abatement in respect of the minimum wage payable where an employer provides full board. [86497]

The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Mr. Ian McCartney): Following the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission, there is no offset allowed for the provision of board when calculating whether the national minimum wage has been paid. There is a limited offset of up to £19.95 a week allowed against the national minimum wage to recognise the benefit of the provision of accommodation.

Mr. Swayne: Is the Minister of State aware of the thousands of seasonal jobs that are provided for young people and students by activity holidays, and of the disaster now faced by the industry? In his tour of the country, when he will reconnect with his core supporters, will he check whether he can find accommodation at £20 quid a week anywhere in the country?

Mr. McCartney: I would be delighted to travel around the country and to talk to the 2 million people who have


already benefited from the national minimum wage. The hon. Gentleman's "let them eat cake" attitude is out of date. If someone has to remain on his employer's premises to the benefit of that employer, that person should receive a minimum wage as well as accommodation and food. That is why the recommendation is set out as it is.
Since the hospitality industry implemented the national minimum wage, more than 100,000 new jobs have been created, most of them full time. The national minimum wage is a job creator, not a job loser.

Mr. Jim Murphy: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the introduction of the national minimum wage faced two great challenges: one political and one in implementation. The political one was made by the Conservatives, who said that it would destroy jobs and create inflation. The second referred to employers paying the fair wage. My right hon. Friend may choose to comment on the spectacular failure of the Opposition's scare stories, but I ask him to say what efforts are being made to ensure that the fair wage is being paid and properly enforced.

Mr. McCartney: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments, and assure him that we have the world's most professional and organised system of minimum wage enforcement. Before 1 April, nine out of 10 employers indicated their total support for the minimum wage, and 40 per cent. of them were already paying it. Since then, I have had to have detailed discussions with 1,200 employers about non-implementation of the minimum wage, and half of them immediately implemented it and apologised for their failure in not doing so before. About 300 of the remaining 600 employers are still being investigated. Only this week, however, a media company had to repay £750,000 to its employees in wages backdated to 1 April.
To anyone not receiving the minimum wage, I say: "Phone up anonymously, we'll get the minimum wage for you—that's what it's there for." I also pay tribute to those employers who telephone us daily to tell us about other employers who are not paying the minimum wage. Employers are joining low-paid workers in ensuring that the minimum wage is paid.

Miss Julie Kirkbride: Why does the Minister have such a blinkered and belligerent approach to the specific question on abatement of the minimum wage when full board is provided? I have a constituent who runs an activity holiday company, and he tells me that, because of the Government's approach, he can no longer offer a job to the young people and students who usually man his United Kingdom sites, but that he is able to continue employing young people and students abroad, where the minimum wage is implemented more flexibly and realistically.

Mr. McCartney: The hon. Lady should know that her constituent's employees, if they are 16 or 17-year-olds, do not qualify for the minimum wage, although people who are not in training will qualify for it. The sector that she mentioned is not losing jobs, but has a shortage of potential employees—because some of the employers are absolutely miserly and want people to work for them for nothing. That is no longer possible, however, because the

Government have introduced the national minimum wage, which has been supported by the overwhelming majority of employers.

European Space Agency

Dr. Doug Naysmith: What assessment he has made of the scientific and industrial advances that have resulted from Britain's participation in the European Space Agency. [86498]

The Minister for Energy and Industry (Mr. John Battle): The United Kingdom has a world-class scientific community in several major spheres of space research, not least Earth observation. Our scientists have played an important part in the European Space Agency's Soho satellite, which has extended our knowledge of the sun's energy dynamics. Last week, my noble Friend the Minister for Science announced that ESA had selected a United Kingdom proposal to study the thickness of Earth's ice sheets as the very first mission in its new earth science research programme, living planet.

Dr. Naysmith: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. I am sure that he will agree that last week's announcement demonstrates the importance of working with our partners in Europe in the European Space Agency, and the benefit of positive leadership in Europe. However, he and other Trade and Industry Ministers will be aware that I have made representations, and even led a delegation to the Department, about closure of the site at Filton. Will he confirm the assurances that we have been given that, when the transfer is made to Portsmouth and Stevenage, every attempt will be made to ensure that none of the workers or expertise available at Matra Marconi Space will be lost, particularly in space vehicle construction and Earth observation? There have also been many assurances that every attempt will be made to find employment for those who choose to stay in the Bristol area. Will he ensure that those attempts are made?

Mr. Battle: My hon. Friend champions the industry in the House, and knows well that ESA membership provides a very wide range of opportunity for both British industry and our scientific and technological community to develop our expertise in Earth observation, which is crucial in the practical work of tackling the challenges of environmental pollution, for example. Although, as he said, the work being done at Filton by Matra Marconi Space—which is a world leader in the design and manufacture of advanced communications satellites, and in every development in the Earth observation market—will be transferred to Stevenage and Portsmouth, the British National Space Centre has received assurances that Matra Marconi Space's expertise in Earth observation will be maintained. It is important to remember that the units are being relocated, not disbanded.
I appreciate that some employees may choose to remain in Bristol, or have no option but to remain there. I hope that there will be alternative employment for those who cannot move—Honda recently announced 125 new jobs—and we shall work to ensure that those employees have such opportunities. Meanwhile, our job is to ensure that we remain world leaders in that science and technology, and continue to make that contribution to Earth observation.

British Inventions

Mr. Robin Corbett: What financial and other assistance his Department makes available to assist the assessment and commercial evaluation of inventions by British nationals. [86499]

The Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs (Dr. Kim Howells): A large part of the Department of Trade and Industry's work is to create an environment in which good ideas can be converted into innovative products and services. We have worked closely with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to develop the national endowment for science, technology and the arts, known by its unglamorous acronym NESTA. One of its programmes is designed to promote invention and innovation.

Mr. Corbett: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply and commend the fresh emphasis on encouraging inventors. Will he focus particularly on the local lone inventor, often working in his garden shed, who feels isolated? I am not making this up, because I have two examples in my constituency. Will my hon. Friend encourage chambers of commerce, industry and trade to offer initial mentoring services to such inventors, perhaps even before they have applied for patents, to ensure that the hundreds of thousands of inventions that are patented every year, on which people have spent a lot of time working, are given proper assessment? We do not want to let things out of the front door only to have to buy them later through the back door.

Dr. Howells: My hon. Friend is right. Now that Business Links can deal with sole traders through its personal business advisers and innovation and technology counsellors, we have an opportunity to take up some of my hon. Friend's proposals. The NESTA programme will capture those people, and not before time.

Dr. Vincent Cable: I am a little disappointed that the Minister made no reference in his reply to the Government's backing for the idea of an academy of inventors—which has been proposed for the purpose that he has mentioned—led by my constituent Trevor Baylis, the inventor of the clockwork radio. Is the Department investigating the role of invention promoters, which are mainly American companies that are here to take cheaply—in effect, to steal—the ideas of British inventors? Some of them are under investigation in the United States for possible criminal charges.

Dr. Howells: Mr. Baylis, the hon. Gentleman's constituent, has met my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Industry several times. His proposals are being encompassed in the NESTA arrangements. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about American companies making incursions into this country looking for innovations. The problem is not just Government quangos. It has to do with private enterprise, banks and the way in which venture capital works in this country. We are not entrepreneurial or innovative enough and our financial back-up arrangements are not designed to promote start-ups as they should be.

Mr. Alan W. Williams: My question has been partly answered,

because I intended to ask about Trevor Baylis and the academy of inventors. Trevor Baylis's idea is that patenting, intellectual property rights and very expensive matters of which inventors have no experience could be provided free by the academy. Will my hon. Friend elaborate on how NESTA could help to develop that capital?

Dr. Howells: My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Industry is meeting the organisation of inventors as well as Mr. Trevor Baylis to try to bring some cohesion and co-ordination to the issue. I am keen that we should begin to advertise the recent price reductions of the Patent Office in Newport. We have reduced costs for inventors and new patents by more than 18 per cent. We now have one of the most robust and least expensive patent systems anywhere in the world, and that is a great boon for British science and invention. I will ensure that the progress that has been made continues.

Mrs. Angela Browning: The question asks about assessment and commercial evaluation. The Minister will know that when all the other questions have been asked in the evaluation of a product the last test is whether that product can be brought to market profitably. In the light of the comments in the press today about the Competition Commission, will the Minister assist me—as a new member of the Conservative Front-Bench team—and outline the Government's attitude to profitability in certain sectors? If today's reports are correct, and we are to have companies dissected in open session, will the Government eventually determine what is an acceptable profit level within business sectors? Nothing will kill innovation quicker than such a policy.

Dr. Howells: I heard the news about the Competition Commission's proposals and I asked what they would mean. They will not mean that companies have to give up commercial information, but they will affect transparency of prices—something in which I am very interested. I would like to know why certain branded goods are sold in this country at much higher prices than those at which they are sold in comparable markets in America or the European Union. British consumers have a right to know how much the mark-up is and how much more they are paying than if they bought those products in France, Germany or America. The best companies will be glad to tell consumers why that is.

Mrs. Browning: Depending on whether the questions are asked in open session—I do not challenge whether the questions should be asked—the consequence of the proposals must be that eventually the Government will make some public announcement about what they deem to be an acceptable profit level in an industry or sector and what they deem to be excessive. Suppose that someone has made a real breakthrough in innovation. That has happened throughout our history and it is how big moves forward happen in the introduction of products to the market: some new technology suddenly allows a new company, sometimes a very small one, to make a product that allows it to make what might be termed a big profit. Will we have benchmarks for profits? That would stifle innovation and would mean that people would go abroad


to make products that should be made in this country. The Government must have some idea how they intend to handle the information when it is available.

Dr. Howells: There is no intention to set benchmarks for prices. I recognise the need for companies to have flexibility and targets which cannot be judged by civil servants in Whitehall, still less by politicians in this Chamber. The Competition Commission's proposals, as I understand them, will relate only—in the first instance—to its inquiry into car prices. That is a sufficiently big and controversial subject to allow such tactics to be used if the commission is to arrive at something like the truth. It will want to know about a wide range of variables in that pricing equation. The open sessions will not be mandatory and companies will not have to give up confidential, commercially sensitive information, but they will have an opportunity to put the record straight publicly. That cannot be bad for anyone.

E-commerce

Mr. Nigel Griffiths: What account he has taken of representations received from the IT industry in framing his policy on e-commerce. [86501]

The Minister for Small Firms, Trade and Industry (Mr. Michael Wills): We work extremely closely with the industry in developing our e-commerce policies. Let me give just three examples: we listened to industry concerns about key escrow, and have announced that our e-commerce Bill will contain no such requirements; my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced in the Budget that, as recommended by industry, he was introducing tax breaks aimed at encouraging companies to provide their employees with personal computers for use at home; and three weeks ago, following a recommendation from the IT industry, we announced the launch of a major initiative to raise the e-commerce skills of small business advisers, which we are implementing in close partnership with BT, Intel, Microsoft and Compaq.

Mr. Griffiths: Is my hon. Friend aware of the industry's widespread hostility to the previous Government's proposals for the compulsory registration of encryption codes, and will he confirm that the Government have rejected any such proposals?

Mr. Wills: I can confirm that key escrow will be no part of our e-commerce Bill; I am indeed aware of the industry's widespread hostility to the proposals.

Miss Anne McIntosh: If we are not to have compulsory registration of encryption codes, can the Minister assure us that we will find a balance between allowing people to access and do business on the internet by e-commerce and maintaining security and safeguarding the information that is available? Is the Minister following the developments of the e-commerce directive being considered by the Council of Ministers and will he ensure that there is no conflict between the Bill and the directive?

Mr. Wills: I am happy to say that I can give an assurance on all those matters. Our proposals will be compatible with European legislation. Of course we are concerned to ensure that the needs of the law enforcement

agencies are met as well as the needs of the rapid roll-out of e-commerce, which is to the overall benefit of this country. That is as far as I can go at the moment, so I hope that the hon. Lady can wait to see the details when we publish the e-commerce Bill.

Madam Speaker: Mr. White.

Mr. Derek Wyatt: E-commerce is underscored first by the local loop cost of a telephone call and secondly by the server technology. BT controls 85 per cent. of local loop costs and 90 per cent. of the servers are in America. If we cannot have free local calls, we cannot develop an e-commerce economy, and if the servers are in America, we cannot collect corporation tax. What does my hon. Friend intend to do about that?

Mr. Wills: I understand my hon. Friend's concern. It has been voiced before in the House: there was recently an Adjournment debate on this very subject. Oftel has been holding consultations on precisely this issue and it will announce the results and recommendations shortly. I will have to see those before I can comment further.

Madam Speaker: I called Mr. White and Mr. Wyatt stood up, so I shall call Mr. White again.

Mr. Brian White: Thank you, Madam Speaker.
My hon. Friend the Minister will be aware that the speed of technological change is far outpacing the ability of the House to deal with it, and that our infrastructure is being caught up by that of countries such as Singapore and the Scandinavian countries. What does he intend to do to ensure that we stay ahead and that we have adequate skills, with programmers and developers who can take advantage of e-commerce? How are we to fill the skills gap?

Mr. Wills: I can offer my hon. Friend comfort on all those points. We are taking steps to ensure that we are the best environment in the world for e-commerce. The e-commerce Bill is only the beginning of a series of initiatives. I will give further details in due course, when we are ready to announce them.

Small Business Service

Mr. John Healey: What representations he has received on his plans for setting up the Small Business Service. [86502]

The Minister for Small Firms, Trade and Industry (Mr. Michael Wills): There has been a range of inquiries in response to the initial announcements about the Small Business Service by my right hon. Friends the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I have had meetings with small business organisations and other interested parties. A formal consultation document will be published shortly.

Mr. Healey: Does my hon. Friend accept that there is considerable scope for the use of information and communication technology in improving access to


information for small firms? What consideration is he giving to making forms, registration documents and contracts available through the SBS electronically, from day one?

Mr. Wills: I thank my hon. Friend for that important contribution. It is crucial for all small businesses to get hooked up to digital networks as soon as possible. There are enormous advantages in cost and in terms of dealing with bureaucracy, as my hon. Friend suggested. That is why, in the modernising government White Paper, we have suggested a range of initiatives to help small businesses in that way. We have pledged that 25 per cent. of Government services will be available electronically by 2002, and that 100 per cent. will be so available by 2008.
I assure my hon. Friend that we shall continue to make progress on these matters, and that the SBS will be tasked with doing so.

Working Time Directive

Mr. David Amess: If he will make a statement about the impact on seasonal workers and employers of the working time directive. [86504]

The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Mr. Ian McCartney): There has been no specific assessment of the impact that the regulations will have on seasonal workers. A regulatory impact assessment of the costs and benefits resulting from the implementation of the working time regulations has been made, a copy of which is held in the Library of the House.
The regulations do provide flexibility, which takes account of the needs of those working in areas dictated by seasonal demands by setting a 13-week qualifying period in respect of the provision of the paid annual leave entitlement. The regulations also take into account those who employ staff in the short term.

Mr. Amess: After Southend's verdict last week that it wanted to be in Europe but not run by Europe, is the Minister aware that many businesses there are suffering as a result of the Government's policies? The problem is so bad that I shall meet the Minister for Small Firms, Trade and Industry shortly to try to secure assisted area status for Southend. The impact of the bureaucratic costs incurred by Southend businesses as a result of the hasty introduction of the directive means that many people are suffering. Will the Minister undertake to conduct a study into the effects of the working time directive on the viability of businesses in Southend?

Mr. McCartney: The hon. Gentleman is the most celebrated seasonal worker in Britain. He travels every day between Basildon and Southend.
The hon. Gentleman surprises me. He represents a constituency whose economy is based on people's ability to take holidays and visit places such as Southend. The directive gives 2.5 million of the lowest-paid workers in Britain the absolute right—for the first time—to three weeks' paid annual holidays, which they can spend this summer in Southend. By Christmas, the right will be to four weeks' annual paid holidays.
As well as being against the minimum wage, the Tory party is against low-paid workers having paid holiday breaks. The hon. Gentleman is mean-minded and

tight-fisted. The measure will give people in Southend and in the hotel trade jobs and opportunities to expand the industry. This is one of the most popular policies that we have introduced. For the first time, everyone in Britain is entitled to a paid holiday.

Mr. Bill Rammell: I assure my hon. Friend the Minister that I have not met anyone—in Basildon, Southend or anywhere else—who opposes the principle of the working time directive. Is not the absolute principle that it is wrong to force people to work for more than 48 hours in a week one that any decent, civilised society should accept?

Mr. McCartney: I agree with my hon. Friend. Perhaps we should ask the hon. Gentleman, a part-time Tory MP running between Basildon and Southend, how many weeks' paid holiday he will take this summer. Business supports the Government in the introduction of the measure. The Government gave a commitment last year that the regulations would be allowed to bed down to ensure that they operate effectively. That is what we are doing and what we shall continue to do, but the fact remains that the Tories are opposed to paid holidays for workers in Britain.

Diesel Engines

Mr. Bob Russell: What plans he has to support companies engaged in the manufacture of diesel engines. [86505]

The Minister for Energy and Industry (Mr. John Battle): The Government are providing support to develop diesel engine technology in a number of different sectors, not least through the science budget. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council is providing £1.15 million to fund research covering diesel engine development, and an additional £1.2 million for research into the general development of the internal combustion engine.

Mr. Russell: I welcome that reply, as far as it goes. I draw the Minister's attention to a company in my constituency, Paxman Alstom, which is suffering because orders from the privatised rail industry and the Ministry of Defence have fallen. I urge the Minister and his colleagues in his Department and in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions to implore the rail companies to invest more in new diesel locomotives. Will he also urge the Ministry of Defence to place its orders with British manufacturers?

Mr. Battle: The Paxman division of Alstom Engines manufactures compact high-speed diesel engines for a wide variety of uses, including commercial, naval marine, high-speed rail traction, off-road, onshore and power generation applications. We are keen that its technological expertise should be enhanced and developed, and that purpose underpins our science and engineering programme. In making appropriate representations to the Ministry of Defence and other Departments on where to place their contracts, the DTI highlights technological expertise and the impact on jobs

Libya

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Pursuant to his oral answer of 6 May 1999, Official Report, column 1073, on Libya, what conclusions he has come to in relation to restoration of Government services, following the suspension of United Nations and EU sanctions. [86506]

The Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs (Dr. Kim Howells): I am pleased to announce that within the limits of resources available, Government services to exporters to Libya are being restored following the suspension of United Kingdom and European Union sanctions. British Trade International is taking a proactive role in collating and making available market information on Libya, both on paper and through the internet, just as it does for all our other trading partners.
Country managers have already taken part in trade events to inform UK companies about trade opportunities with Libya. British Trade International is actively encouraging UK firms to consider joining trade missions to Libya. However, the full range of export services—particularly Government financial support—will not be restored until satisfactory progress has been made on the case of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, which could lead to normalisation of bilateral relations and the re-establishment of a full commercial operation in Tripoli.

Mr. Dalyell: I have been deeply involved in the case of WPC Yvonne Fletcher. Is not the case so complex that the time has come for a ministerial visit?

Dr. Howells: Normalisation cannot occur while a young police officer has been murdered on our streets in uncertain circumstances. We have a duty to find out the truth of that murder and to find the guilty parties.

Entrepreneurial Culture

Valerie Davey: What action he is taking to promote a more entrepreneurial culture among academic scientists. [86507]

The Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs (Dr. Kim Howells): I refer my hon. Friend to the competitiveness White Paper published last December. A number of initiatives set out in that paper will help academic scientists to become more entrepreneurial, including the £25 million science enterprise challenge, which will create up to eight university centres to equip scientists and engineers with entrepreneurship and business skills.

Valerie Davey: I welcome that response. Will my hon. Friend congratulate Bristol university on becoming one of the 12 that have succeeded in the first round of the bid for the science enterprise challenge?

Mr. Eric Forth: It says here.

Valerie Davey: Does my hon. Friend agree that helping universities to develop long-term strategies for

interaction with business is good for individuals, the economy and Britain?

Mr. Forth: Who wrote that one out for the hon. Lady?

Dr. Howells: I congratulate Bristol university on a tremendous achievement that builds on the great reputation of the university, a reputation that does not deserve to draw heckling from the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). For too long, the UK has been adept at locking away intellectual capital in our universities, rendering it commercially redundant. The Government are determined to break with the past, and to see companies spin off from our universities in the way that they should have done long ago. The indolence of the Conservative party during its long years in Government wasted many of our innovative and entrepreneurial skills. That will not happen under our Government.

Working Time Directive

Helen Jones: What assessment he has made of the number of people entitled to annual leave as a result of the working time directive. [86509]

The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Mr. Ian McCartney): The entitlement to paid annual leave is available to all workers, apart from those in sectors currently excluded from the working time directive—namely, those involved in transport, sea fishing, and other work at sea and doctors in training. When the regulations came into force on 1 October 1998, it was anticipated that 2.5 million workers would benefit for the first time from an entitlement to leave.

Helen Jones: One key to implementing the working time directive fully will be to ensure that people are fully aware of their entitlements. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to see that people know what the directive entitles them to? In view of his earlier remarks, will he reassure my constituents that they will not be forced to spend their annual leave in the company of the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess)?

Mr. McCartney: I defend the landladies of Southend. I have visited Southend on numerous occasions and I would welcome the opportunity to have a few days off and a break there. Unfortunately, Ministers are not covered by the working time directive.
As with the national minimum wage, we have put £1 million into a campaign to supply information and help to businesses and employees respectively on how to implement the working time directive and get holiday pay. We have also provided workers for the first time ever with protection against being sacked or disciplined for claiming their right to paid holiday leave. We have also provided special protection for young and night workers. It is interesting to note that, other than a few Tory Arthur Daley-style employers, employers in Britain back this proposal for good minimum standards because it means that workers will be more committed to their enterprise, will stay with it and will help to make it successful.

Business of the House

Sir George Young: Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 21 JUNE—Second Reading of the Food Standards Bill.
Motion on the Appropriation (No 2) (Northern Ireland) Order.
TUESDAY 22 JUNE—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Tax Credits Bill.
Remaining stages of the Access to Justice Bill [Lords].
WEDNESDAY 23 JUNE—Until 2 o'clock, there will be debates on the motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Opposition Day [14th Allotted Day] (First Part). There will be a debate entitled "Proportional Representation" on an Opposition motion—no doubt in favour.
Motion on the Church of England Cathedrals Measure.
Motion on Care of Places of Worship Measure.
THURSDAY 24 JUNE—Opposition Day [15th Allotted Day].
Until about 4 o'clock there will be a debate entitled "Government's Policy for Widows" followed by a debate entitled "Food and Supermarkets". Both debates arise in the name of the Liberal Democrats.
FRIDAY 25 JUNE—Debate on innovation and enterprise on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
The provisional business for the following week—at this time of year it tends to be particularly provisional—will be as follows:
MONDAY 28 JUNE—Second Reading of the Financial Services and Markets Bill.
TUESDAY 29 JUNE—Opposition Day [16th Allotted Day].
There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
WEDNESDAY 30 JUNE—Until 2 o'clock, there will be debates on the motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Remaining stages of the Disability Rights Commission Bill [Lords].
THURSDAY 1 JULY—Debate on armed forces personnel on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
FRIDAY 2 JULY—There will be a debate on drugs on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.

Sir George Young: The House is grateful for next week's business and an indication of the business for the following week. I welcome the announcement of an early debate on drugs, which I called for last week. That leaves outstanding the debate on the royal commission on long-term care, which I also mentioned last week. It reported three months ago and there is growing concern that the important issues that it raised are being ignored. An early debate would allay those fears. I welcome the

third and final debate on the services. I believe that the new structure has been well received.
Might we expect a statement on Monday from the Prime Minister after this weekend's G8 meeting? The Prime Minister has recognised that there is a crisis in Northern Ireland. As we approach the deadline of 30 June the House would welcome a statement from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland about recent developments. Might the Leader of the House facilitate that?
Wednesday's debate on proportional representation has been chosen by the Opposition because of widespread concern at the form of last week's elections, but not at the results. Can she tell the House who will answer for the Government? Might it be the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney)?
Finally in the interests of all who work in the House, can the Leader of the House shed any further light on the summer recess beyond saying what she said last week—that she hoped it would be in August?

Mrs. Beckett: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his welcome for the debate on drugs. Indeed, we have now dealt with a fair number of the outstanding issues, despite having all the extra debates and statements as a result of Kosovo. I am mindful of the request for a debate on long-term care; however, I know that the right hon. Gentleman is aware that the Government are giving careful and full consideration to the recommendations before them.
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for welcoming the pattern of debates on defence. I agree with him that that is an improvement—even at this early stage, the House realises that. I anticipate that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will make a statement on Monday as to the outcome of the G8 summit, which, as I said last week, is indeed in Cologne—to my relief. I will bear in mind the remarks of the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire on Northern Ireland; I shall draw them to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
At present, I cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman who will open the PR debate, but it is unlikely to be my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney). I cannot add anything to what I said last week about the summer recess. However, in view of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks on PR, I congratulate him and his hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) on the increase in their responsibilities to bring them further into line with some of mine. I invite them to be pleased that they do not undertake the full range of those responsibilities; they are not yet responsible for the Euro-elections or for the millennium bug.

Mr. Alan Simpson: Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Health if he intends to make a statement about yesterday's press release on the national health service performance indicators? In the figures published yesterday, those from the hospitals and the health authority in Nottingham were absent, although the data had been sent in. The problem


may be that, although I know that the data had been sent in, in order to ensure confidentiality in the transmission of electronic data, the hospitals were advised to omit the last three digits of the postcode.
It would be helpful to clarify the terms on which NHS hospitals are expected safely to contribute data for the national collection of performance indicators.

Mrs. Beckett: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I understand that it is possible that some of the returns from Nottingham arrived a little late. However, the difficulty as to the clarification of terms that he identifies may well have contributed to any problems. I shall certainly draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. My hon. Friend is right to point out that to make available information that should be in the public domain is an important new initiative. It is important that we develop it and get it right.

Mr. Paul Tyler: Following on from the concerns expressed about various aspects of the national health service, may I again draw the attention of the Leader of the House to the fact that we urgently need a statement from the Secretary of State about NHS dentistry? The situation is deteriorating in many parts of the country.
I endorse the request by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) for an early statement and debate on the royal commission on long-term care. We appreciate that the Government must consider the matter carefully, but many weeks have passed since the publication of the royal commission's report and there is considerable concern about the matter.
Can the Leader of the House give us any indication of the likely timetable for freedom of information legislation? Again, there is widespread concern among many Members of the House that there seems to be a major deficiency as between the proposals in the White Paper and those currently being made. I hope that there will be an opportunity for the House to debate them sooner rather than later.
Finally, as we are now two years into this Government, will the Leader of the House give us a progress report on the election pledges on gender discrimination? Will she tell the House how many differential impact assessments have been made? Who will make statements on that matter? Is the Leader of the House directly involved in the Cabinet sub-committee on women, and how often does the sub-committee meet?

Mrs. Beckett: I will draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks about dentistry and about the need for a debate on long-term care—and the remarks made by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire on that subject—to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. As the hon. Member for North Cornwall is aware, some work has been done on improving the standard of NHS dentistry, although we realise that a great deal of work remains to be done to redress the problems that we inherited.
At present, I can give the hon. Gentleman no further information about the timing of the Freedom of Information Bill. However, we look forward eagerly to that debate, as we do not accept that it will reveal any major deficiency; indeed, we believe that many of the criticisms made of the Bill are misplaced.
I do not have to hand the information requested by the hon. Gentleman on gender discrimination and the measurement of differential impacts. However, I shall draw his remarks to the attention of the Leader of the House of Lords, who has responsibility for the matter.

Mr. Frank Cook: Will my right hon. and compassionate Friend look at early-day motion 637?
[That this House applauds the decision of Her Majesty's Government to initiate in December 1997 a review of the causal factors related to the alleged Gulf War Syndrome and the physical state of the service personnel and civilians who allegedly suffer its ill effects; applauds the level of concern and degree of logic that led to this decision; expresses the hope that the results of this review will be published in the near future; and calls on the Secretary of State for Defence to apply the same measures of concern and logic to the equally pressing but longer running cause of the British nuclear test veterans.]
Both that early-day motions and early-day motion 659 stand in my name and have gathered considerable support from hon. Members on both sides of the House. They refer to British nuclear test veterans: one calls for a review of veterans' circumstances consequent on their attendance at nuclear tests; the other calls for the institution of a meritorious ribbon. Will my right hon. Friend try to find Government time for a short debate this side of the summer recess, so that the House can form a view that might prompt the inclusion of some sort of sensible suggestion in the Queen's Speech?

Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend has campaigned vigorously on that issue for many years, and many have paid tribute to his efforts. The Government have made clear our recognition and appreciation of the service given by those veterans and, as my hon. Friend knows, the issue has been considered exhaustively over a number of years. However, I remind my hon. Friend that, although we did say that the arrangement was provisional, we anticipate that there will be a debate on armed forces personnel on 1 July. If he is able to catch Madam Speaker's eye, he will be able to raise such matters on that occasion.

Mr. Peter Viggers: Following the question on hospital league tables, does the right hon. Lady agree that those might require further analysis and refinement? One point is absolutely clear: the crucial importance of keeping to an absolute minimum the time between heart attack and hospital admission. Does she accept that, if the Royal Hospital Haslar in my constituency, with its accident and emergency unit, were to be closed, there is no doubt that lives would be lost on the congested road between Gosport and the remaining hospitals? Does she agree that, because of that and because of the overwhelming need to solve the crisis in the defence medical services, which the closure of that hospital would


make worse, we should have a debate on that subject next week?
If, for any reason, the right hon. Lady finds it difficult or impossible to provide a debate next week, will she at least ask her right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Defence and for Health to respond to the request that I made a month ago for an urgent meeting to discuss the matter with both Departments?

Mrs. Beckett: I shall certainly draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks to the attention of my relevant right hon. Friends. As he knows, at least one of them has had some heavy operational responsibilities of late. We accept that there are difficulties, which we inherited, in both the health service and the defence medical services. However, the debate on armed forces personnel might give the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to raise that issue from the defence angle, which I know he has pursued in the past.

Joan Ruddock: My right hon. Friend may have read in The Independent today that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is to publish this afternoon a report from the respected John Innes Centre on cross-pollination and other contamination of organic crops by genetically modified test crops. MAFF has confirmed to me that the report will be published at 3.30 pm. Has my right hon. Friend received any indication that there will be a statement made in the House? If not, will she make inquiries about, and give consideration to, the possibility of having a debate in the very near future on the possible need to modify the Government guidelines on distances between such crops, and on organic farming and organic food products, for which there is now clear and strong public support?

Mrs. Beckett: I have not seen the story to which my hon. Friend refers—Thursday tends to be a slightly hectic day for me—but I was aware that the John Innes Centre report was to be published shortly, so my hon. Friend might be right. I fear I cannot undertake to find time for an immediate debate on the matter, but I realise that it is one in which hon. Members on both sides are interested, and I have no doubt that they will continue to pursue it.

Mr. Robert Syms: Will the Leader of the House put urgent pressure on the Secretary of State for Health to make a statement to the House on the NHS clinical advisory committee proposals to reduce the number of cleft lip and palate units from 57 to 15 nationally, which is causing great concern in Poole? In the south-west region, units at Plymouth, Exeter and Poole would be closed, yet the Poole unit is one of the best in the country and it publishes its results. A major petition has been signed by several thousand people and a campaign is being run by that fine Bournemouth newspaper The Daily Echo to keep the unit open. My constituents believe that the matter should be discussed on the Floor of the House.

Mrs. Beckett: I will obviously have a busy correspondence with my right hon. Friend the Secretary

of State for Health this week. I will certainly draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks to his attention. The purpose of the clinical advisory unit is to allow decisions to be made after weighing up what is in the best clinical interests of patients. However, I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern and that of his constituents—and note his advertisement for his local newspaper.

Mr. Gordon Prentice: Has my right hon. Friend seen the mischievous valedictory article by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) that appeared in The Guardian, in which he claims as a fact that members of the Labour Cabinet refer to the Prime Minister as "the Liberal"? Why would the right hon. Gentleman say something that we know to be untrue? Now that the leadership baton is about to be passed to the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy)—who is never here—who was reported in yesterday's press as saying that pensions reform is a suitable subject for discussion within the Cabinet joint consultative committee, is it not time to have an early debate on the role, functions and purpose of the joint consultative committee and where all of this is taking us?

Mrs. Beckett: All I can say to my hon. Friend is that I have never heard anyone so describe the Prime Minister—in the Cabinet or outside it. As for the reason behind the remark, perhaps it is because, given the Liberal Democrats' showing in the Euro-elections, the right hon. Member for Yeovil is trying desperately to claim expanded membership for his party from anywhere he can.

Rev. Martin Smyth: Will it be possible to have a debate or a statement in the near future about the relationship between the territories around these islands? I have just returned from a British islands and Mediterranean Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference where we discovered that, in this era of joined-up government, there are some gaps in relations between the islands and central Government. It would be useful to explore that matter. In that context, I support the plea by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) for a statement about Northern Ireland in the near future because, as I understand it, there are slippages in legislation that should be dealt with by the House.

Mrs. Beckett: I know the Government will be most interested to hear a report of the visit to which the hon. Gentleman refers—particularly if it exposes gaps in our relationships of the kind that he identifies. As for a statement on Northern Ireland, I will certainly add the hon. Gentleman's name to the list of representations to be made to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. John Cryer: Did my right hon. Friend see last month's reports of the British Medical Association's comments about genetically modified food, which appeared shortly after the Science and Technology Committee reported on GM food? Although the American giant Monsanto spends millions of pounds every year in an attempt to convince us that GM foods are nice and cuddly and that we can live with them quite happily, public opinion is moving in the opposite direction. People


are becoming more and more concerned about this issue and debate is increasing in the country. Is not now a good time to hold an urgent full-day debate on GM food?

Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend makes an interesting suggestion. He is right to say that there is on-going discussion and debate about this matter. I wish that that discussion and debate were better informed, but it is the task of hon. Members—from whatever side of the argument they come—to inform the debate. I hope that all hon. Members will continue to do that. Particularly at this time of year when time pressures are great, I fear that I cannot undertake to find time for a debate in the near future, but I will certainly bear in mind my hon. Friend's remarks.

Mr. Peter Atkinson: Could the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State for Health—yet another obligation upon him—to come to the House and make a statement about the Government's plan to bring forward the ban on the advertising of tobacco products to December this year? Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the argument, the issue is significant in that it involves censoring the advertising of a legally marketable product. It would also prohibit tobacco companies from communicating with their clients via direct mail. The first that we heard about that was, as usual, in a press release and on the radio this morning. The regulations that are to be laid today are not yet in the Vote Office, so we have no idea whether they will be subject to the negative or affirmative resolution procedure. We have no idea whether regulations will be laid in August, after the consultation period, or whether the House will have any opportunity to debate the matter.

Mrs. Beckett: Discussion of the tobacco advertising ban has been under way for some considerable time. I understand that there are those who have a principled objection to such ban, but the hon. Gentleman will know that a decision has been made that a ban should be imposed across the European Union. My understanding is that there is not necessarily a prohibition on direct mail, but there is a strong attempt to try to hinder tobacco companies in using direct mail specifically to target vulnerable younger customers. I am sorry to hear that the regulations are not available, and I shall take that up with the Department of Health.

Mr. Phil Hope: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the social exclusion unit has just published a report on teenage pregnancy? Will she arrange for an early debate on that report in the House because it is an unpalatable fact that this country has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in western Europe? I am sure that she shares my concern that too many young people leave school unaware of the responsibilities and obligations of parenthood. I should seek assurance in such a debate that the report was being acted on swiftly, that young people are being made aware of how hard it is to be a parent, and that we shall achieve a substantial reduction in the number of teenagers who become pregnant.

Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend is entirely right in identifying that serious problem, about which hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned. Although I am very cautious about drawing the attention

of Adjournment debates to all hon. Members—such debates are for the hon. Members who applied for them—I point out that a one-and-a-half-hour debate on that subject, in the name of the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), is scheduled for Wednesday 23 June. That demonstrates that the matter is an all-party concern, and if my hon. Friend is particularly nice to the hon. Lady, she may not mind if he speaks in her debate.

Mr. Eric Forth: The Leader of the House will of course be aware that yesterday, in response to a question from the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), the Prime Minister said:
My view is that, in the modern world as we move closer together, there will be a pooling of national sovereignty."—[Official Report, 16 June 1999; Vol. 333, c. 391.]
He said not that there has been but that there will be, a pooling of national sovereignty, so he obviously envisages further pooling of national sovereignty.
Does the right hon. Lady share my view that the Prime Minister's pronouncement is sufficiently momentous to justify an urgent debate so that we may hear from him what he meant by those words? I hope that the Leader of the House recognises the significance of the Prime Minister's statement and that we deserve to learn a lot more about it very soon, so that we can all make up our minds what on earth he was talking about.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: He went to Brussels and took the money.

Mrs. Beckett: I am sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman, who was indeed himself an MEP, no doubt in times when it was less unpopular in the Conservative party to be at all involved with Europe. However, I am afraid that I do not share his view that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said anything momentous or with an unknown meaning. Our membership of the European Union, or the Common Market as it then was, has involved a pooling of national sovereignty over the years. We have all known that since 1972, and most of those steps were, for good or ill, taken by Conservative Governments. The right hon. Gentleman's view that the idea is astonishing and new is not borne out by the facts.

Mr. David Atkinson: Anticipating the right hon. Lady's statement on the millennium bug, which is to follow, and with 198 days to go before it hits us, will she arrange for an early, full debate on that threat to our public services and the private sector and on the consequent disruption to our daily lives?

Mrs. Beckett: I have no plans to stage a debate in the near future, although if, over time, there is a demand for such a debate, I shall take it into account, as I try to take into account all other such demands. I know the hon. Gentleman's keen interest in the subject. May I remind him that we have been making quarterly statements, as I shall do shortly, and that we intend to give a progress update monthly from now on? Unless there is some dramatic new development, the House may find that that meets the demand for information—in fact, it may over-egg it.

Mr. David Chaytor: In the next couple of weeks, we understand, the Government will publish


their long-awaited and important White Paper on post-16 education and training. In the previous Session, the Government provided in their own time a debate on further education and training. As I recall, the then Minister gave an assurance that he would do everything possible to ensure that each year in Government time there was a formal debate on the subject. Will my right hon. Friend ensure not only that when the White Paper is published, probably within the next two weeks, there will be a Government statement to go with it, but that this important subject will be debated in Government time?

Mrs. Beckett: I will certainly take on board and draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment my hon. Friend's request for a statement on what he rightly says is an important subject. I am glad to know that Ministers at the DfEE are giving away time on the Floor of the House and saying how many formal debates there should be. That is a bad habit that Ministers in several Departments are getting into. I understand of course that Ministers in every Department think that their Department's business is so important that it should dominate the House.
I assure my hon. Friend that I shall bear in mind his request, and that I recognise the importance of his remarks, but the debates for which we can find time on the Floor are an issue for a wider range of responsibilities, including the usual channels.

Mr. Graham Brady: I wonder whether the Secretary of State for Health could be encouraged to make a statement on the serious problem of growing waiting lists for heart bypass surgery, as was highlighted in the Daily Mail on Wednesday, particularly in the light of remarks made by Mr. Ben Bridgewater, a consultant thoracic surgeon at Wythenshawe hospital, which serves my constituents, to the effect that some 500 people are dying unnecessarily every year in Britain because of over-long waiting lists for heart bypass surgery, and that the problem is worse now than it was a year ago?

Mrs. Beckett: I shall certainly draw that matter, too, to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. I will not disguise it from the hon. Gentleman—I hope that I am not doing wrong by saying this, so I stress that, very incorrectly and very unusually, I am giving my personal opinion—that I have long thought it unfortunate that we cannot do more to encourage people to carry donor cards—[Interruption.] Sometimes, as the hon. Gentleman knows, organ donation is involved. I recognise the scale of the problem, as does my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Desmond Swayne: The right hon. Lady has just announced yet another day's debate for the minority parties, despite their extraordinary record in that respect recently. Has she seen early-day motion 713?
[That this House expresses its admiration and respect for the Leader of the Opposition who despite a multitude of criticism, poor opinion poll ratings and warnings of electoral disaster had the courage and determination to adopt and fight for a policy designed to prevent further

surrenders of sovereignty to the non-democratic institutions of the European Union; and believes that, following the election results on 13th June, with the help of the British people, he will prevent the final surrender over the single currency.]
Furthermore, does she think that it might be within her power to persuade the Liberal Democrats to debate that next week, rather than one of the motions that they have chosen? It might help them to focus on their own leadership election.

Mrs. Beckett: The amount of time allotted among the Opposition parties for Opposition-day debates is covered by tried and tested general guidance. The reason the Liberal Democrats get more debates than they may have done in the past is that they did rather better at the last general election, at the expense of the Conservative party.

Mr. Owen Paterson: May I offer my sympathy to the Leader of the House for the miserable week that she has had? She was forced to lead an election campaign under a system that she does not believe in, sundry spin doctors put about stories that she had disappeared into her caravan during the campaign, and she has since been blamed for the disaster that engulfed the Labour party when the results were announced.
It is clear that the British electorate found the PR system repulsive. It became clear yesterday that the Prime Minister did not understand that. We know that he is a busy man, but could he detain himself for half an hour after Prime Minister's questions next Wednesday to explain his personal position on the question of introducing PR for this Parliament?

Mrs. Beckett: I suppose that I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his sympathy, although the notion that we took a week's holiday in our caravan, which was entirely misplaced, was not, as far as I am aware, the invention of any spin doctor. If the hon. Gentleman wants my frank opinion, I suspect that it started as a newsroom joke and spread because it was too good a story to resist.
One of the most worrying things about the European elections, which should genuinely trouble all hon. Members, was the low turnout. It was not unpredicted, but it was alarming. The hon. Gentleman says that it is because of the system. It has always been a feature of the European Parliament elections that turn-out is lower than at local elections, and turn-out at the local elections this year was only 29 per cent.; so, again, that is part of the pattern. But it is a source of serious concern to all of us. One thing that we should be doing, and the Government are doing, is giving much thought to how we can make it easier, not more difficult, for people to vote. That could apply across the board.
As to the notion that the low turn-out was due simply to the voting system, given the understandably extensive coverage of the important issue of the war in Kosovo, and a range of other factors of that kind, it is, perhaps, less surprising than it ought to be. I would not myself lay the blame at the door of the system, but I am sure that all those factors will be considered. My right hon. Friend's position on proportional representation is entirely plain.

Mr. John Bercow: Further to the highly pertinent inquiry from my right hon. Friend the Member


for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), may we have an early statement from the Prime Minister to clarify whether he intends to lead the campaign by the federasts to abolish Britain's national currency and to hand over the running of our economy permanently to people whom we do not elect and cannot remove?
Given that only today in the Daily Mirror that newspaper's chief political commentator, Mr. Paul Routledge, has described the Prime Minister, following his risible performance yesterday, as a startled deer who limped off the stage, does the right hon. Lady not accept that it is crucial that the Prime Minister, instead of sitting on the fence and playing the role of the chameleon, which he so enjoys, should instead stand up for the principle in which he believes, argue the case to abolish our national currency and be prepared for the fact that, when he does so, this Conservative Opposition will come back at him with arguments and force infinitely greater than anything he can offer?

Mrs. Beckett: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his promotion.

Sir Patrick Cormack: It has not shut him up.

Mrs. Beckett: No, it has not. I wondered whether it might mean that we would have the pleasure of the hon. Gentleman's company less frequently, or at less length—but apparently not.
With regard to the campaign and the issue of the single currency, the Government are positive that the stance that we have taken is right in Britain's national interest; we shall therefore continue to take it.

Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Will the Leader of the House arrange next week for the Home Secretary to come to the House and make a statement on the progress of the Criminal Cases Review Commission?

Is she aware of the growing concern of a number of people about the length of time that the review board is taking in dealing with a number of cases? One particular case that I have in mind, and which the right hon. Lady may know of, is that of Stephen Downing. That has now been with the Criminal Cases Review Commission since its inception; or rather, in the first instance it was with the Home Office, but it was rightly transferred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. I have no objection to that. It was a good move to set up that board. But the fact that it is taking so long to arrive at a decision on the case is causing concern.

Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman will know that we inherited long delays in many part of the criminal justice system. That is a source of concern to the Government, as it rightly is to the public, and we are trying to take steps to diminish those delays. That applies, too, to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Ministers are aware of and concerned about the delays, and we are considering what can be done to ease the position.

Mr. Christopher Gill: Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), may I also urge the Leader of the House to try to persuade the Prime Minister to come to the House to explain one or two things about the single currency? Yesterday he told us yet again that we have record employment and alluded to record low inflation and very low interest rates. Will he explain how that legacy of 18 years of Conservative government can be improved on by joining the single currency?

Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman's memory is a trifle faulty. The legacy of 18 years of Conservative government was interest rates and inflation in double figures and, usually, unemployment well into double figures. On the single currency, I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend said yesterday or to what I have said today.

Millennium Compliance

The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): I am announcing today the results of the sixth quarterly review of progress in tackling the millennium bug for Departments, agencies and key parts of the wider public sector. I have arranged for the completed questionnaires on which the statement is based to be placed in the Libraries of the House and published on the internet.
To allow people to see at a glance how well individual Departments and agencies are doing, I shall also be publishing tables showing their performance against a number of key criteria. There are still areas of concern, which I will highlight, but the most important message of the review is that, overall, the Government are on course to be millennium compliant well before the end of the year.
When I made the previous statement, I said that most Departments expected to have finished work on their business-critical systems by July. That remains the case, although there has been slippage in some Departments. I remind the House that completion is defined as all systems being corrected, tested and back in service. By that definition, more than 80 per cent. of government's business-critical systems are now completed. Of the programmes that are running into the second half of the year, most have already completed the bulk of their work.
That is welcome, but my principal focus in this statement, naturally, is on those Departments and agencies that plan to complete their programmes in the last quarter of the year. I am concerned that these are tight deadlines that allow little room to deal with unexpected problems.
All Departments and agencies that have planned completion dates in October or later need to pay particular attention to such planning. The target is that all Departments and agencies should have full business continuity plans in place and tested by the end of October. I am pleased to report that, already, three quarters of Departments have considered how to ease pressure over the new year period. Over the coming months, we shall be working closely with Departments to ensure that they all have appropriate management plans in place to deal with particular pressures over the new year period. These millennium operating regimes will be reported on as part of the quarterly monitoring process within government and the wider public sector and will be included in the infrastructure programme of Action 2000.
I will be writing to ministerial colleagues about the completion dates for business-critical systems of the Inland Revenue, the National Insurance Contributions Office and the Planning Inspectorate and about the slippage in the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency programme. I have asked colleagues to keep tight management control of work on the remaining systems and to ensure particular focus on business continuity planning in the time that remains.
I have also written to all ministerial colleagues to suggest that they consider whether they can ensure that key staff working on year 2000 issues in Departments and agencies should not be moved between now and the end of the critical period, in line with good practice in the private sector.
I am pleased to be able to report that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has made up the slippage reported last quarter, although I still have concerns because it operates in nearly every country across the world, and that poses a particular challenge in ensuring continuity of service.
The progress of the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces has been sustained, and I am particularly encouraged that some elements are ahead of schedule despite the impact of events in Kosovo. In other areas there is little room for slippage, and they will need to be kept under close review. However, the Ministry is confident that Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force front-line units will be compliant by late summer. Overall cost estimates remain relatively stable, with only a slight increase since the last review—from £420 million to £430 million. Nearly half the returns show no change in total estimates.
Key parts of the wider public sector are now subject to independent assessment as part of the infrastructure project. I shall continue to report on them here, and they will report regularly to the national infrastructure forum.
The results of the most recent health service quarterly review in England were announced on 21 May 1999, covering the period up to 31 March. The number of organisations reporting good or satisfactory progress was consistent with earlier reports, at 90 per cent. The estimated cost of their remedial year 2000 work has been slightly reduced, to about £310 million for the whole project.
All NHS organisations are required to be fully prepared, with compliant equipment or effective contingency plans, by 30 September 1999. Organisations that are lagging behind are being visited by teams from the NHS executive regional offices and the NHS year 2000 central team, and are being required to develop action plans to enable them to be on schedule. Her Majesty's fire and police inspectorates are now completing the first stages of their programmes of independent assessment of the fire and police services in England and Wales, and the results of those inspections will be made public in the national infrastructure forum on 13 July. The aim is that, by September, no risk of disruption involving the millennium date change can be identified in any force or brigade.
Summary information provided by the Audit Commission indicates that, while all types of local authority have made progress during the last six months, there is still a wide variation between the best-performing and poorest-performing authorities. The results of independent assessments of individual local authorities will be presented by Government offices to the national infrastructure forum on 13 July.
We are now fewer than 200 days away from the date change—an event which, I am sure, is now beginning to seem more real to many people as they start to make their preparations and plan their own celebrations. It is clear from the overall picture of central Government and the wider public sector that a huge amount of work has been done, and in many instances that work has been almost completed; but much needs to be done in the time that remains. Departments that plan to finish their programmes in the last quarter must ensure that they have robust continuity plans which have been tested, and we shall monitor their progress in that regard.
I know that the House is likely to take an increasing interest in progress on these issues. Hon. Members may find it helpful to be reminded that I intend to report on a monthly rather than a quarterly basis in future.
The hallmark of the Government's approach has been our practice of being open and forthcoming with information, and encouraging others to follow our lead. We intend to pursue that approach.

Mrs. Angela Browning: I thank the right hon. Lady for making her statement available to me earlier today.
As the right hon. Lady will know, the Government inherited a clear target: in the public sector, including Government Departments, the criteria for 2000 compliance were to be met by December 1998. It is worrying, therefore, that in June 1999 we should still be receiving reports of instances in which Government and public agencies have yet to comply with those criteria—although I accept that the right hon. Lady's report was upbeat in comparison with some of her previous reports.
I am glad that the right hon. Lady has now decided to report on a monthly rather than a quarterly basis, as we have now entered the last six months of the year, but how will that be dealt with? When the House is sitting, will the right hon. Lady continue to report from the Dispatch Box? How will the matter be handled over the long summer recess? When the House reconvenes in October, we shall be close to the target date.
Will the right hon. Lady comment on some of the concerns that she herself identified? Will she in particular respond to the concern about the Inland Revenue and National Insurance Contributions Office? There is already concern about the failure of NIRS2—the national insurance recording system—which is causing much distress to many people, particularly those who are seeking to draw their state retirement pension. Has she been able to identify how that might be compounded if that Department does not meet its target, or to make the necessary arrangements? Those who wish to claim disability benefits for the first time, often as a result of injury and accident, will be particularly distressed if that facility is under pressure.
The statement referred to the Ministry of Defence. It recognised that, despite the huge demands of the war in Kosovo, the MOD has made progress, but, in December 1998, the MOD put out a press release about RAF aircraft being mission capable. It said that the RAF would be compliant in that regard by 31 May this year. Was that target met? The right hon. Lady has expressed concern about some areas in the MOD. How will those be affected by its new commitments in respect of the continuing presence of British forces in Kosovo and the Balkans generally?
The right hon. Lady will be aware that, in the fourth report, Britain was first in the league of European countries that were already undertaking compliance preparations for 2000, but that, by the fifth report, Britain had slipped to eighth. Is she able to tell the House that the position has been restored and that the progress that she has mentioned in her statement means that we are back at the top of the league, above our competitors and partners elsewhere in the world?
The right hon. Lady mentioned that she hoped that staff in Government Departments would be retained by those Departments to see their work through, but what

flexibility is there in those Departments? If a particular Department needs more assistance to meet its target date, will there be some transfer of key staff to help it to do so?
I ask one additional thing—and it is relevant. The document entitled "The Millennium Bug: Facts Not Fiction", which has been distributed to every household, is easy to read and is designed to help to answer questions from consumers about domestic matters relating to the millennium bug. It gives an Action 2000 website for further information for the public. It also gives a telephone number, a helpline.
Is the right hon. Lady aware that, when members of the public telephone that helpline—0845 601 2000—there is no one to answer the telephone? The line simply refers them to the website address that is already printed in the document. Clearly, many people, particularly elderly people who are worried about a hospital operation, for example, or people who are worried about whether they should travel on an aircraft, want to talk to someone about what is happening. If they do not have access to a website, the helpline will be pretty ineffective.

Mrs. Beckett: First, I welcome the hon. Lady to her new responsibilities; I am sure that she is particularly delighted with them in respect of the millennium bug. May I take this opportunity to offer her and the new Front-Bench team a briefing on much of the detail of millennium bug matters, which I hope will be helpful to her, and which we are happy to give to all hon. Members?
The hon. Lady said that we inherited a compliance target of December 1998. That is true, but—with no disrespect to her, because she is new to these responsibilities—a target was about all that we did inherit. We inherited a rather small organisation with a very small budget of £500,000 and the job of raising awareness, but not much else.
One feature of this particular delightful issue is that, as time goes by, everyone realises that the problems caused by millennium compliance are more complex than had been anticipated. I am pleased to see that the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) is nodding, as he is very familiar with the issues.
The problems, therefore, are taking longer to deal with than had been anticipated. Moreover, people who had not shown sufficient foresight are finding that the problems are costing more to deal with than they had thought. Therefore, although we certainly hoped to meet the December 1998 target, we are doing much more than people anticipated would have to be done when the original targets were set.
I confirm that I shall come to the Dispatch Box to make the quarterly statement, unless we receive strong representations to the effect that no one wants to hear anything more about the issue. Over the summer recess, we plan to make information available, perhaps in the Library and on the internet. However, if the hon. Lady or other Opposition Members have other views on how best to make information available to Members, perhaps in a circular, I should be more than happy to listen and perhaps to take them on board.
The concern that has, quite rightly, been expressed about the Inland Revenue relates to a number of specific systems with later delivery dates. However, the majority of remedial work being done for the Revenue has


been completed, and much of what has been fixed is already running live. Much work has been done in addressing those issues.
NIRS2 was built to be 2000 compliant, and the work that is still being done is to test interfaces with other systems. The testing that has been done to date has not revealed significant problems, and we hope that that will continue to be the case.
Ministry of Defence front-line units are expected to be compliant by late summer, and much more work has been done in addressing compliance issues—in both the RAF and in the other services—than it was feared had been done. I believe that the hon. Lady's concerns on those issues have been dealt with.
The hon. Lady also asked about the United Kingdom's place in league table reports. I am not up to speed with the latest report—there may not yet be an updated one—but I fear that they are pretty meaningless. In many cases, international—not United Kingdom—league tables are based on what is said by those who are responsible for the matter in a particular country, and, frankly, the less they know about millennium bug problems, the more likely they are to say that they have no difficulties and the higher up in the league table they go. Therefore, such information is not terribly useful, and I cannot enlighten her on the latest results.
We are endeavouring to ensure that any problems are dealt with by using Government staff resources. Until now, we have not found it necessary to transfer people to deal with outstanding problems, and we hope and intend that it will not be necessary to do so.
The booklet helpline is intended principally to allow people to order more copies of the booklet. However, the hon. Lady has made the important point that the booklet may lead people to conclude that wider information is available. We shall give some thought to the matter. Nevertheless, I thank her for her welcoming the booklet itself.

Mr. Brian White: I congratulate the Government on the very encouraging progress made on the issue by most Departments. Nevertheless, I was worried by one comment made by the Leader of the House—about some systems being completed by 30 September 1999. The fact is that 9 September 1999 is a critical date, as it will be used by many systems to designate the end of a file. I am concerned that the issue has not been fully addressed, and hope that the next report will tell us the extent to which it has been.
Two other points were not dealt with in the report. First—I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence are here—the rusting ex-Soviet Arctic fleet had non-compliant software. It is still a major danger. Now that the war in Kosovo is over, can we renew our efforts to exchange information with the Russians to try to ensure that it is not a danger by the end of this year? Lastly, just-in-time systems are a particular problem for third-world countries. In a global economy, we are only as good as the weakest link. How has our support for third-world countries been going?

Mrs. Beckett: I thank my hon. Friend, who takes a great interest in these matters. Thought has been given to

the impact of 9 September. People are very conscious of the problem. As far as I am aware, most organisations that have carried out testing have not encountered the range and scale of problems that had been feared. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the issue. Testing is taking place.
Ministers at the Foreign Office and at the Ministry of Defence continue to exchange information and offer advice and support to the Russian Government on the Arctic fleet, as do several other allies. There is excellent co-operation on that. I am sorry to say that we are by some measure the largest contributor to the World Bank's fund to provide assistance to developing countries. The scale of the problem may be less in those countries, but even on a smaller scale it could be serious for them. We continue to offer advice and financial support through the World Bank and by other means. We are giving further consideration to whether we can take other steps to help those countries to meet some of the problems.

Mr. Andrew Stunell: I thank the Leader of the House for the advance notice of the statement, which shows both progress and areas of concern. When will the tables to which she referred be published? In view of her frankness about the value of the international tables, it would be worth knowing whether those at the top of her tables know the least about the problem. Will the information be available in good time for us to study it before her statement next month?
The fire and police authorities will not get the all-clear until the national infrastructure forum on 13 July. Is the right hon. Lady satisfied that there will be sufficient recovery time should that all-clear not be forthcoming? Excellent progress has been made in the national health service. Has the right hon. Lady made any arrangements for the Government to meet the additional budgeting pressures caused by achieving compliance? Should there be problems and should a recovery plan be needed, will the Government make proposals and offer the necessary funding support?

Mrs. Beckett: Our tables are not based on responses from those who may or may not know much about the problem. Like all the information that we are publishing, they are based on independent assessment in which we have confidence. I understand and expect that the tables will be out later today. If I am wrong, I shall make sure that the hon. Gentleman is notified as speedily as possible.
The independent assessment of the fire and police services should be complete for the July national infrastructure forum, but not before. The hon. Gentleman talks about time for recovery. The point of the process is to identify where work remains to be done and to ensure that plans are put in place so that it is done. That is why I propose to make more frequent statements as we move towards the date change, so that I can give the House a view of progress that has been made in areas of difficulty. The point of targeting the work that still needs to be done is to meet the relevant deadline. Similarly, the NHS was among the first of the public services to begin to address the issue as far back as 1995, although—in common with everyone else—NHS staff wish that they had started earlier. They believe that their budgeting is robust. The hon. Gentleman may have noticed that I said in my statement that the financing expectation has shifted slightly, by some £10 million. In the context of the


NHS budget, that is a marginal shift, and we do not anticipate that extra resources will be needed. It was expected that Departments would plan for the programme in their ordinary budgeting process.

Gillian Merron: I welcome the thorough statement that my right hon. Friend has made. Can she confirm that the business-critical systems in the Department of Social Security are already compliant, and can she assure the 11,000-plus families in my constituency who are entitled to the record rise in child benefit announced in the Budget that they need have no worries about getting that benefit?

Mrs. Beckett: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. She is right: it is important that people realise, through the receipt of the correct benefits, that the Government have made substantial increases in, for example, child benefit. It is also very important that DSS systems work effectively for those people who are dependent on benefit. The DSS is well up to speed on its preparations, but it is making contingency plans and preparations for any unforeseen difficulties that may arise.

Mr. David Atkinson: Has not the right hon. Lady's statement confirmed the repeated warnings that she has rightly made that there is no guarantee that we will avoid problems in the new year, which is why insurance companies will not provide cover against the millennium bug? Have not the Government been unbelievably complacent in failing to use the opportunity afforded by the booklet "The Millennium Bug: Facts Not Fiction", which went out over the weekend, to give a clear warning and to urge people to take sensible precautions to avoid disruption in their daily lives? Will the Government produce further advice on the practical measures that people should take now to avoid panic later? Will the right hon. Lady also warn householders to beware bogus callers offering to make their domestic equipment millennium compliant, which is unfortunately what is happening?

Mrs. Beckett: I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman's knowledge and experience on this matter. He is right to say that there can be no guarantee that nothing will go wrong, because peak vulnerability will occur at a time of possible bad weather and a long and disruptive holiday.
I was a little sorry that the hon. Gentleman descended into such criticism of the Government's message and the balance of the booklet, which comprises some 16 pages of practical advice. The Government are anxious to ensure that people take what sensible precautions they can against any difficulties. The hon. Gentleman will understand that the balance of that message is difficult to get right, and the Government keep the matter continually under review. While we want people to be aware of anything in their lives that might be affected, we do not want to encourage the development of behaviour that will create problems where none need exist.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White) asked about the Soviet Arctic fleet, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House talked about informal

advice and support. However, I put precisely the same question to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who replied:
I am pleased to say that Igor Ivanov has accepted my invitation to visit Britain as my personal guest, and that issue will certainly be high on our agenda."—[Official Report, 14 June 1999; Vol. 333, c. 30.]
Have those vital talks with the Russians been in any way injured by what has happened in Kosovo?
May I press my right hon. Friend a little further on 9 September 1999? She said that the Government are conscious of the problem. It may not be enough to be merely conscious of it, because it is desperately important.

Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend is right to identify the importance of the dialogue with Russia. It is my understanding that that important exchange of information has not been affected in any way by recent events. Indeed, the recognition of such common problems has helped to hold the international community together in the face of difficulties that might otherwise have tended to drive us apart.
There is no complacency about 9 September, but Action 2000 has advised us that although people have been testing for the impact of the code, no cases have yet been found of the date causing equipment to fail, so people are somewhat less concerned than they were at an earlier stage. I assure my hon. Friend that everyone is none the less mindful of the fact that there could be problems. We continue to keep the matter under review.

Miss Anne McIntosh: Does the Leader of the House share my concern that, although planes may not fall out of the sky on 1 January 2000, some third countries—by her own admission—have not made the preparations in air traffic control that we and other European Union countries have made? What has she done in conjunction with third countries to identify the routes that are most at risk, so that passengers from Britain and other European countries can be informed that they are not advisable to take on or around 1 January?
Some local authority services in North Yorkshire are still only on amber. Can we have an assurance that by the magic date of 9 September 1999 they will have undertaken all preparations to ensure that they are millennium compliant?

Mrs. Beckett: I myself have not taken action to chase up the issue of air route advisability; it is my job to nag those who are responsible and make sure that they do it. The international authorities have been collecting information and we are hopeful that, slightly later in the year, some useful information will come into the public domain. A great deal of work is being done and we are mindful of the fact that public confidence will be assisted by knowing broadly where people stand.
The hon. Lady is right to express concern about local authorities: the picture across local government has been somewhat patchy. We understand that there has been substantial progress both in authorities that were already doing quite well and in those that were not doing so well. The Audit Commission continues to monitor and assess that work and will publish further information towards the early part of July. As that information is published, we will seek to get authorities to identify areas where work


still needs to be done and ensure that they plan to do it. We welcome any pressure from hon. Members on their own local authorities to help us to get that message across.

Mr. Ben Chapman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there have been misleading reports that some police forces and fire services may not be ready for the challenges of the millennium bug, creating unnecessary worry about those essential services? Does she agree that the reports were based on out-of-date information and that much work has been done, not least in Merseyside, to ensure that police forces and fire services will not only be ready to face the challenges of the bug on the due date but are on course to be ready three months before it?

Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend is right to identify the fact that there was rather misleading publicity about some information that was already more than a little out of date. Fresh information about the status of individual forces and fire brigades will be available in July.
I take this opportunity to remind the House that those misleading reports stated that some police services were still classed as red—that is, that the risk of material disruption could not be ruled out. That does not mean that such forces could not operate: any deficiency in any critical part of a force's programme would mean that that force would be classified as red, as some were much earlier in the year. The whole purpose of this process is to ensure that any such deficiencies are identified and dealt with. However, other areas of a police force's work are often completely unaffected.

Mr. Derek Twigg: One of the concerns in my constituency is that the services provided by the Department for Education and Employment should be compliant and that services will continue to be delivered accurately and on time. Will my right hon. Friend say whether the Department's compliance programme has been completed? Are the business continuity plans on target and ready to be tested?

Mrs. Beckett: Yes, I can indeed tell my hon. Friend that that Department is on course and on track. We are now encouraging all Departments to give more thought and planning to their contingency preparations. That information will also be placed in the public domain.

Saville Inquiry

Mr. Andrew MacKay: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In light of this morning's High Court judgment in favour of the ex-paratrooper witnesses at the Saville inquiry, have you had any request yet from Downing street about the Prime Minister coming to the House of Commons to amend the terms of reference that he inadequately gave the House? They have caused those ex-paratroopers to be scared for weeks about the consequences of their names and details being given to the inquiry. That could have led to a loss of life.
As we know from a written answer from the Secretary of State for Defence, the legal fees have cost the taxpayer more than £1 million. At a time when paratroopers are being sent by the Government to Kosovo, where they do an excellent job, it is important that their colleagues in Londonderry should be protected from an inquiry in which their names and identification will be given. Is the Prime Minister coming to that Dispatch Box to put matters right?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): I must inform the hon. Gentleman that Madam Speaker has not received any word that there will be a statement.

Mr. Julian Brazier: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You may wish to give a written answer to this point, but the matter came to light only late this morning and I hope that you will give me some guidance about whether hon. Members can criticise Lord Saville. Two questions seem to be relevant. First, is Lord Saville covered by the protection afforded to judges against certain types of criticism, given that he is acting in the capacity of tribunal chairman rather than as a judge?
Secondly, does the question of sub judice arise? There is real concern about this judge, who has been criticised by the courts three times now and who also appears to be responsible for an administrative blunder that has put in danger the lives of five ex-paratroopers and their families. Are we able to raise the matter in the House?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. The tribunal and the judge are covered by the sub judice rules of the House.

BILLS PRESENTED

FINANCIAL SERVICES AND MARKETS

Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer presented a Bill to make provision about the regulation of financial services and markets; to provide for the transfer of certain statutory functions relating to building societies, friendly societies, industrial and provident societies and certain other mutual societies; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed [Bill 121].

TRAFFIC REDUCTION (AIR QUALITY AND HEALTH)

Mr. Don Foster presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to publish a report on the effects of various levels of road traffic on emissions of certain gases and on health: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 23 July, and to be printed [Bill 122].

Kosovo

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hanson.]

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Robin Cook): I welcome the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) to his new place on the Opposition Front Bench. The hon. Gentleman has proved that he has the merit to earn his promotion, and I congratulate him on it. I congratulate him, too, on his good fortune in taking up his position on the first day on which the House may debate Kosovo in the confident knowledge that NATO's military campaign has secured its objectives.
There is much still to be done. We will continue vigilantly to monitor the withdrawal of all Serb forces until the last vehicle has rolled over the border. That moment will mark not the end of our engagement in Kosovo but the start of a new stage in which we must face the civilian challenge of rebuilding its shattered economy and its fractured society.
We are near the completion of our military objectives. The first was an end to all repression in Kosovo and the withdrawal of all Serb forces, including all army units, special police, and paramilitary forces. As the House knows, Serb forces are carrying out a full withdrawal from Kosovo. The majority of Serb forces have left Kosovo: zones one and two are mostly clear. The military agreement requires the last of them to have left zone three by Monday. Their phased withdrawal is broadly in line with the agreed timetable. On the whole, withdrawal is being accomplished without further violence, but we deplore isolated incidents that have occurred, such as the tank shells reportedly fired into a village last night.
Our second objective was the deployment in Kosovo of an international military presence with NATO at its core. Some 16,000 NATO troops are already deployed across Kosovo. The United Kingdom provides the largest national contribution, currently double the number of troops provided by any ally. The rapid deployment of such a large number of troops with heavy equipment has been a remarkable feat of professional planning and disciplined execution. The House can be proud both of the performance of the British units and of the leadership of the whole operation by General Jackson and his team.
Our third objective was the unconditional return of all refugees. Milosevic not only expelled Kosovo Albanians, but deliberately set out to make their return more difficult by ordering his troops to destroy all the identity papers of those who left. For a long time, Milosevic insisted that any peace plan must enable Serbia to screen refugees who were returning. He will have no such power. At British insistence, the Security Council resolution makes it explicit that only the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will have a say over the return of the refugees.
In short, our military campaign has secured all our objectives. There has been no compromise by NATO, no concession to Belgrade and no guarantee of immunity to Milosevic or those others indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal.
Now that the campaign is over, I am struck by the large number of commentators who turn out to have supported it all along. It did not always seem that way during the


dark hours that inevitably occur in any conflict. Nevertheless, we can declare an amnesty, if not in Serbia at least in Britain. I am happy to welcome support for the campaign from all who now welcome its outcome.
I hope nevertheless that a representative of the Scottish National party will turn up to take part at some point in the debate. I regret the fact that no SNP Member is here. Perhaps, now that the title of the debate is being shown on the annunciator screens around the Palace, one of them will hurry in to recant on the SNP leader's denunciation of our campaign as "unpardonable folly". As recently as 1 June, the party's defence spokesman talked of
NATO stumbling inexorably towards military defeat in Kosovo".
Two days later, on 3 June, Milosevic capitulated. Events have proved that it was not the strategy of NATO that was unpardonable folly, but the powers of prediction of the SNP.
Even those of us who supported the campaign from the start, however, cannot fully grasp the scale of the relief and joy of those who have endured the past three months within Kosovo. The warm and enthusiastic welcome for our troops from Kosovo Albanians who have showered their tanks with flowers testifies to the dark horror from which we have liberated them.
Yesterday I had a phone call from Pristina from Veton Surroi, the publisher of the leading Albanian newspaper, Koha Ditore, and a principal figure in the peace talks at Rambouillet. Veton Surroi has been in hiding in a succession of flats in Pristina since the middle of March. He described it to me as "one long night". The greatest strain had been the knowledge that he brought with him the threat of death to those who hid him. Had we faltered in our resolve and abandoned our military campaign, Veton Surroi would surely have been hunted down and killed, like Fehmi Agani, his colleague in the Rambouillet delegation.
As it is, Veton is now able to join us in the reconstruction of Kosovo. His first priority is to get Koha Ditore back on the streets again. Today I can announce to the House that the Foreign Office will provide a grant of £50,000 to help him to repair the damage to the offices and printing presses of the Albanian newspaper and get it back into production. Access to a free media is a fundamental condition of the democracy we are now able to build in Kosovo.

Mr. David Winnick: Before my right hon. Friend develops the point about the reconstruction of Kosovo, as all the broadsheets today lead on their front page with some of the horrifying atrocities that were committed during the last months of the Serbian regime, will he again consider the point that I made to him earlier this week, namely, that a White Paper on the atrocities should be presented to Parliament? I realise that a war crimes investigation will continue and, hopefully, prosecutions will occur.

Mr. Cook: I am considering how I can best respond to my hon. Friend's point. I am not sure that a White Paper would necessarily be the best way forward, but we have placed in the Library details of the atrocities of which we are aware to date. Certainly I shall consider what further document we can make available to Parliament and the public.

Mr. Donald Anderson: On the point about press freedom and encouraging the forces of

democracy within Kosovo, will my right hon. Friend consider what help might be given by the World Service of the BBC, for which there is enormous respect in the region, not only in terms of reaching right into the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, beyond the leaders, but in training journalists in that area?

Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend makes an important point. The House will be aware from previous debates that the broadcasts from the BBC World Service to the region have greatly increased throughout the period of the conflict, and that is one of our tools for making sure that we get the truth past the poisonous wall of propaganda built by President Milosevic. If, over the coming months, we can establish a real, free democracy in Kosovo, with a real, truly open media, it will provide inspiration and encouragement to Opposition forces in Serbia who will see Kosovo enjoying freedoms denied to the people of Serbia.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) anticipated what I was about to say about the victims of war crimes within Kosovo. In some ways, Veton Surroi is among the lucky ones. He has survived, while more than 10,000 others have been murdered. I want those who ordered the murders, the brutality and the tortures to know that we shall spare no effort in bringing them to justice.
One of the toughest negotiations over the text of the Security Council resolution related to the reference to the International War Crimes Tribunal. Throughout those negotiations Britain insisted that there must be a strong, clear commitment to the work of the tribunal. By the end of the negotiations, we had secured a demand for full co-operation with the tribunal by all concerned. Britain will lead the way in providing that full co-operation. The first task falls to our troops in KFOR to identify the sites of war crimes. In village after village that our troops have entered to provide security, they have been confronted by the most harrowing evidence of the atrocities committed against the people of Kosovo.
Only 10 miles into Kosovo at Kacanik, our troops came across the freshly dug earth and the putrid smell of a mass grave. Local villagers have given evidence that about 100 people were killed in April, including the women and children of the village. In Pristina this week, the Parachute Regiment uncovered a regional police headquarters that had clearly been used as a torture centre. In a building with five floors and a cellar, British forces found knives, rubber and wooden batons, baseball bats with Serb slogans carved into them, and drugs, presumably used to sedate the victims. Outside the building, a trail of charred paper led to an incinerator—as the Serb forces left, they appeared to have tried to burn any documentary evidence of their crimes. However, the instruments of torture left behind tell their own story. Investigators for the International War Crimes Tribunal are now visiting the scene.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Before we leave Kacanik, I do not doubt that those terrible things occurred—

Mr. Winnick: That is good of you.

Mr. Dalyell: I think my hon. Friend might wait.
Will my right hon. Friend examine the circumstances at the end of February, in which the Serb police inspector, Bogulduk Staletovic, who was trying to bring together the ethnic Albanian community and the Serbs, was murdered, together with several of his friends? Does my right hon. Friend accept that both sides were involved in brutalities—in some areas, one side was more involved than the other? If there is to be an investigation, the full truth should be revealed.

Mr. Cook: As I told my hon. Friend on Monday, when he put a similar point to me, the remit of the International War Crimes Tribunal is without regard to ethnic identity or nationality. The tribunal will resolve for itself which war crimes it pursues. In Bosnia, the tribunal has already proved that it is blind to ethnic identity when it comes to examining a war crime.
I must rebut my hon. Friend's closing statement. It is wholly false to imply that there is any kind of equivalence between the isolated, occasional examples of violence against the Serb population and the wholesale, co-ordinated, premeditated, pre-planned deportation of a whole people at the point of a revolver, and under pain of brutality and systematic rape. Yes, of course we shall also pursue those responsible for crimes against the Serb people, but I do not think that my hon. Friend—for whose wisdom and intelligence I have great respect—should blind himself to the wholly different character of the sustained brutality launched by Belgrade against the people of Kosovo.
I was about to assure the House that Britain has committed a 15-strong team of police officers experienced in investigating scenes of crime. Those officers are already deployed at Kacanik. Theirs will be the grisly and unpleasant task of exhuming the mass graves and recording the cause of death. Their forensic skill and professional commitment will make a vital contribution to bringing to justice those responsible for the atrocities that have been committed in Kosovo.
If we are to discourage the survivors from taking the law into their own hands and seeking revenge, we must convince them that the international community means business when it offers a legal remedy against those responsible for the atrocities. Reconciliation will not be easy after the horrors of the past year, or of the ethnic cleansing of the past three months. However, we are determined to make every attempt to create a pluralist, multi-ethnic Kosovo. Our objective was to reverse the ethnic cleansing. Having fought that campaign to halt the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians, we will not now tolerate the ethnic cleansing of the Serb population in Kosovo, nor of any other ethnic minority. The Balkans do not need another tragic round of revenge killings. We must break the cycle of violence that perpetuates ethnic hatred and fear.

Dr. Norman A. Godman: Long before Rambouillet, in response to a question I put to him, my right hon. Friend gave the House an assurance that, in any settlement, he would ensure that the human rights of the Serb minority were protected. The idea that Kosovar Albanians and Serbs can live together in peace is something of a pipe dream. We find it hard enough to persuade Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland to

live in harmony, and what about the divided island of Cyprus? Might we not have to accept some form of partitioning, even if only in the short run?

Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend puts his finger on one of the true tragedies of the Serb population of Kosovo. Some of them have complained that Milosevic betrayed them when he abandoned them; in truth, he betrayed them when he failed to sign up to the Rambouillet peace accords, which would have provided that Serb population with full protection and with their own elected national community leaders to protect their culture, their language, their religion and their customs. That opportunity was lost by Milosevic, and that was the great betrayal of the Serbian population of Kosovo. I agree that it will not be easy to persuade people to face the future without feeling the bitterness of the past, but there can be no long-term future of stability, peace and prosperity for the Balkans if we try to sweep every ethnic group into its own pure cantonment where it has no contact with any of the many other ethnic groups of the Balkans region.
I intend to visit Kosovo next week. Throughout the crisis, I have consulted almost daily with my colleagues, the Foreign Ministers of our major allies, and on behalf of us all I will deliver in Pristina two clear messages to the peoples of Kosovo. To the Serb population I will say, "KFOR is there to protect you as well." The Security Council resolution makes it clear that the obligation relates to the security of Albanian and Serb citizens alike. We ask those Serb residents now fleeing Kosovo to turn back and to contribute to a multi-ethnic Kosovo that respects the human rights of every citizen, irrespective of ethnic identity or religion. To the Albanian population, I shall say that anyone who takes the law into his own hands undermines the opportunity for Kosovo to become an open democracy based on the rule of law. I understand the appalling emotional distress that must be experienced by those who have lost husbands or wives, fathers and mothers, but to pursue revenge for the past will only make it impossible to secure a future without violence for their children.
We have now secured one of the two military priorities set out in the Security Council resolution: an agreement for the withdrawal of all Serb forces. To guarantee the ceasefire throughout Kosovo, it will now be necessary to make progress on the other immediate priority: demilitarising the Kosovo Liberation Army. At Rambouillet, the KLA accepted the principle of demilitarisation in the context of a NATO security force. We are now negotiating the practical arrangements for observance of the ceasefire by the KLA, and we hope soon to have its signature to an undertaking with KFOR for demilitarisation. I hope to speak later today with Hashem Thaqi, the leader of the KLA, to urge an early signature to the undertaking.
By early next week, we expect KFOR to have fulfilled its planned deployment throughout Kosovo. That is based on five sectors, led by Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States. Other allies, such as the Dutch, Belgian and Canadian forces, are already contributing units to one or other of those sectors. Today, the United States hopes to reach agreement with Russia on the basis for a Russian participation in KFOR. Madeleine Albright and Bill Cohen will report tomorrow to a meeting of NATO Foreign and Defence Ministers. We might then be in a position to finalise the arrangements whereby the Russian


contribution can play its part in the command structure within one of the allied sectors. Only a fortnight to the day from the date when President Ahtisaari secured the capitulation of President Milosevic, we are already on the way to making a reality of the peacekeeping military presence in Kosovo with NATO leadership.
However, it will take much longer to undertake the immense task of civil and economic reconstruction in Kosovo. It will take the full commitment of all available international agencies to measure up to the task, which will not be over until the last refugee has returned to his or her village and we have ensured that all refugees have the shelter they need for the next winter. When she winds up the debate, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development will speak more fully about our contribution to the return of the refugees and to the urgent task of providing emergency relief to all those who have been trapped hiding among the hillsides and forests of Kosovo for the past terrifying three months.
The objectives we set for the campaign were not ones we drew up to suit ourselves. We did not demand the withdrawal of all Serb forces for the convenience of NATO, nor does NATO have any wish to occupy Kosovo. The driving reason behind the objectives of our campaign was that they should create the conditions necessary for the refugees to know that they could return in safety. We have secured those conditions, and we will not halt until we have completed the task of repopulating Kosovo with the people whom Milosevic tried to deport.
The defeat of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo has an impact that goes far wider than Kosovo itself. It has given hope to the whole of the Balkan region that the rest of Europe will not tolerate aggression or ethnic violence anywhere on our continent. The Government promised that we would make the conflict in Kosovo a turning point for the whole of the region. We could not have reached this successful outcome without the support and the solidarity of all Serbia's neighbours. Each of them understood only too well why it was important to them that Milosevic and his poison of ethnic hatred were defeated.

Mr. Douglas Hogg: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but he seems to be concluding. When he made his statement two days ago, I asked about the political reconstruction of Kosovo. It is plain that NATO and the other allies will have to assist with the creation of representative bodies and political structures in Kosovo. It would be helpful if the right hon. Gentleman could give us a flavour of the intentions in that regard. Perhaps he intended to cover that ground in his speech, but there has not been much sign of it.

Mr. Cook: The basis on which we will reconstruct political institutions in Kosovo is set out in the Rambouillet peace accords, which, if I recall correctly, are in the Library. If they are not, I shall ensure that they are placed there for future reference. Those accords provide for an elected assembly of the Kosovar people and for an executive drawn from it.
As to the immediate future, I must say frankly to the House that the task of civil government in Kosovo will be in the hands of the United Nations, with the assistance

of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Union, the World Bank and the UNHCR. However, I hope that in a year or more one of the urgent priorities of that civil government, drawn from the interim international administration, will be to transfer its powers to elected representatives of the Kosovar Albanians and to ensure that we maintain the spirit of the Rambouillet peace accord, which provided for maximum decentralisation to the local regions of Kosovo so that communities would have maximum room to settle their own security matters and the future of their own public services. Much of that work has yet to be done, but the Rambouillet peace accords were the result of a lot of hard effort by the international community and they give us a good staging post.
I was about to turn to the neighbours of Serbia and Kosovo, without whom we could not have achieved what we have, and to each of whom we owe a debt. To Bulgaria and Romania, we owe a debt for their co-operation with the sanctions regime and their agreement to overflight by NATO. To Macedonia and Albania, we owe a debt for the extraordinary burden they shouldered from the dramatic tidal wave of refugees, and for willingly giving access to their territories for the deployment of advance NATO forces. To Montenegro, we owe a debt for the great courage President Djukanovic and his Government showed against intimidation by Belgrade, and the open home that they provided for refugees from Kosovo and dissidents from Serbia.
In the immediate future, we must repay our debt by helping those countries to regenerate their economies, which have been badly disrupted by the conflict. In the longer term we must accelerate their ties with the European Union and NATO to ensure that their freedom is underpinned by prosperity through trade with the wealthy markets of Europe, and their security by the guarantee of NATO. In the case of Montenegro, we have already prevented any further build-up of troops by Milosevic by insisting that all forces from Kosovo withdraw to Serbia and none to Montenegro.
We want the people of Serbia also to benefit one day from the strengthened relationship that we are forming with all their neighbours, but we cannot embrace Serbia in the modern Europe until Serbia itself embraces the values on which that modern Europe rests: a belief in the equality of all citizens, respect for the human rights of minority groups and the recognition that a country is strengthened, not weakened, by containing a diversity of ethnic cultures. Nor can Serbia hope to join the international community as long as it is led by a Head of Government who dare not set foot outside its borders in case he is arrested as an indicted war criminal.
Milosevic claimed that he was defending Serbia's heritage. It is hard to think of a more authentic voice of the true Serbian heritage than the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church, yet on Tuesday it demanded that Milosevic resign. It declared that
every sensible person has to realise that the numerous internal problems and the isolation of our country on the international scene cannot be solved or overcome with this kind of leadership".
It called for the Government to be replaced by
new people, acceptable to the domestic public and the international community.
Milosevic fools nobody—except, possibly, himself—when he goes on state television to announce that he has just achieved victory. Increasingly, as the news seeps back


from Kosovo, his people will realise that the pain and damage that his confrontation with NATO brought upon them was for no useful purpose. After immense cost to his people and his economy, Milosevic has been compelled to accept a peace deal on worse terms than he could have got if he had settled through dialogue at Rambouillet.
There will be a time in the future, when the immediate pressure of urgent priorities has lifted, when the House can reflect on some of the wider consequences of the success in Kosovo. I put to the House four positive consequences of what we have achieved. The first is that NATO is healthier and more united. The alliance has come through a testing time, but despite all the gloomy predictions that its resolve would weaken or that its unity would crack, the alliance remained robust and resolute until we secured all our campaign objectives. That can give the House new confidence in the security that our membership of the alliance brings to our nation. We can also take satisfaction in the valuable role that Britain played throughout the crisis in promoting cohesion between the European and American pillars of the alliance.
Secondly, we have opened a new chapter in the relations between western Europe and the Balkan region. We now have the opportunity to close the chapters of Balkan history that are written in blood and to make the region's countries our partners in trade and our equals in freedom.
Thirdly, we have halted the backward-looking nationalism of Milosevic and comprehensively defeated the evil policy of ethnic cleansing. For 10 years, Milosevic has terrorised his region and brought violence to the peoples of the former Yugoslavia. If he had previously been faced with the same resolve and made to experience the same clear defeat without compromise, he might never have visited such brutality on Kosovo. As it is, he will now think long and hard before he attempts it again.
Finally, we have delivered not only a military victory but a victory for our values. The real winners in Kosovo are our values of human rights, ethnic equality and humanitarian law. We did not fight this conflict for territorial gain or strategic advantage. We fought out of principle. The many people across the alliance and in the wider international community who have contributed to the successful outcome will always know that in Kosovo they struck a blow for human decency. It is those people, who have given their all in working on the military or diplomatic track, whom the House should thank. It is to them that we owe an outcome that will make it possible for us to return the refugees to their homes and to begin the task of bringing freedom and peace to Kosovo.

Mr. John Maples: I thank the Secretary of State for welcoming me to my new role. In foreign policy, there is a great deal of consensus between the Government and the Opposition, and I hope that it will continue. Even in areas of consensus, however, difficult issues have to be addressed and difficult questions must be asked. I shall ask some of those questions today. There are also areas of considerable disagreement between us; mainly, I suspect, concerning Europe and the future of the European defence identity and whether that should be developed within NATO. There will be very robust debates on those issues.
I pay tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. and learned Friend for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), who by any standards has had a distinguished political career. He spent 12 years in the Government, eight years in the Cabinet and three years as Home Secretary. That is a series of posts for which almost any hon. Member would settle. It is interesting for Conservative Members to see so many of the reforms that my right hon. Friend introduced as Home Secretary, which were anathematised by the then Opposition, now being put into practice by his successor. There is irony in that.
I turn now to Kosovo. The Foreign Secretary is right to say that NATO and the Government have been very successful in the first phase, and they deserve our congratulations. As he said, there were many doubters, and indeed some said that the task would be impossible. However, it looks as though by Sunday night NATO will have succeeded in getting the military out of Kosovo. It has been an impressive performance. As the right hon. Gentleman said, the solidarity of the alliance has been enhanced by the experience. There are those who wavered, but the alliance came through unscathed.
As the Foreign Secretary said, Kosovo's neighbours have behaved very well. Two in particular have behaved magnificently. Albania and Macedonia have taken in an enormous number of refugees. Macedonia did so at considerable risk to the stability of its own fragile ethnic balance. The Secretary of State for Defence invited me to accompany him to Albania, and it was truly impressive how the people of that country opened their hearts and, literally, their homes to people whom they regarded as brothers. People in Albania said to us, "There is no limit to the number of refugees we can take. They are our brothers." Such practical humanitarian concern is very impressive.
Military lessons must be learned from the experience. We are seeing encouraging and rewarding television pictures of columns of Serb military vehicles leaving Kosovo for Serbia. However, those columns seen to contain an awful lot of tanks and armoured personnel carriers, which I understood we had destroyed. Much of the Serb armour in Kosovo seems to have survived the air attacks. Now is not the time, but at some stage we shall have to consider in more detail whether we knew that that was the case, or whether we truly believed that our figures for the destruction of tanks were correct.
As the Foreign Secretary said, British troops—first the Air Force and now the Army—have played a valuable role in Kosovo. It is good to see them at the forefront of operations, displaying their usual competence. Another of today's ironies is that the troops of whom we hear most are the Parachute Regiment, and soldiers from a former generation of that battalion are under investigation in the Saville inquiry in Northern Ireland. We should reflect on how much we owe to that regiment's courage and training and its commitment in Kosovo, and, in retrospect, how much we owe to those who were in Northern Ireland 20 years ago. It is within the Government's power to alter the inquiry's terms of reference to ensure that the lives of those troops and their families are not endangered.
Despite the success of phase 1 of the campaign, Kosovo is still, for various reasons, not safe for the refugees to return to, and nor is its future secure. Two factors contribute to that. The first is the presence of the Russians at Pristina airport, and the second is the future position of the KLA. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State


have said on many occasions, and we entirely agree, that the ultimate test of success in the operation will be the return of all the refugees to all parts of Kosovo. Partition in any form is not an acceptable outcome.
There is clearly still a major Yugoslav army capability in Serbia and Montenegro. The buffer zone was reduced in the negotiations from 25 km to 5 km, but the withdrawal of the troops looks as though it is on schedule to end on Sunday night. Then NATO, the Governments and the international organisations can turn their attention to the future of Kosovo.
One aspect that has received less attention than the military aspects is the civil power that the UN Security Council resolution called for—UNMIK, as I suppose we will come to know and love it. That is being set up. As I understand it, one of the Deputy Secretary-Generals is in charge of it and is in Kosovo.
I hope that the process is moving fast. The military is performing tasks that should be handed over to a civilian authority as soon as possible. Such an authority will have some responsibility for the security of the population of Kosovo, which will be vital to a long-term settlement.
Paragraph 11 of the UN Security Council resolution calls for the deployment of an international police presence. When the Secretary of State for International Development winds up, perhaps she will tell us what progress is being made on the establishment of an international police presence. The KLA clearly wants to be the police in Kosovo, and no doubt many KLA members will have a role to play in that regard, but they cannot be allowed simply to turn themselves into the Kosovan police force.
Bosnia sets a reasonably good example of an international police force gradually incorporating more and more local people, but initially the police force in Kosovo will have to be under the control of the United Nations. We cannot allow the KLA to turn itself into the police force.
The Secretary of State spoke about the atrocities. That is what the campaign has been about. The Government's policy and NATO's has been to defeat that. I spoke at length on the telephone this morning to a journalist who is in Kosovo. She told me that in every village there is a mass grave, and that every garden seems to have a grave in it. We see the appalling scenes on television, as evidence of the mass slaughter is discovered. It is clear from the stories and the mass graveyards that that was worse than anything that I imagined, and we do not yet know the full scale of it.
The Secretary of State mentioned the discovery of a torture chamber at Pristina police station. It is good news that UK investigators are involved in helping the UN war crimes tribunal. We must make sure that as many as possible of the people responsible for those crimes are brought to justice, or a large part of the positive effect of NATO's operation in Kosovo will have been lost. If we cannot bring home to people like Milosevic the fact that they face the serious risk of prosecution for war crimes, they will not be as discouraged as we want them to be.
It is a sad fact that the atrocities continue as the Serbs withdraw. We see them leaving a scorched earth policy behind them. People are killed and their houses destroyed even as the Serb military forces are withdrawing.
As regards the Russians, whatever gloss we put on the matter—I understand why the Government and General Jackson have to say that it is not much of a problem, but it is—they continue to hold the airport, and their presence there will disrupt the establishment of the northern or the French zone.
We were collectively outwitted by the Russians. They cooked up a plan with the Serbs, and we should expect to see more of that. I do not think that Milosevic has run out of tricks. On Wednesday 9 June, late at night, the military agreement was signed. The plan, as I understand it and as was reported, was for NATO troops to enter Kosovo at 4 am on Friday. According to reports in The New York Times and elsewhere, those plans were postponed by 25 hours on Thursday night. The press briefing was postponed as well. As we all know, in the end the NATO troops went in at 5 am on Saturday.
There was some speculation in the press about whether that was at the request of the United States, to enable its troops to be in the forefront of the deployment, but that always seemed an unlikely explanation, because the United States already had 1,700 troops in Macedonia. I do not think that it was planned that they should be among the first troops to enter Kosovo, but they would have been there and gained whatever publicity was needed.
The truth came out when a NATO officer was reported as saying that the Serbs were having difficulty in withdrawing. They were suffering from a shortage of fuel and could not get out on schedule. It appears that that was a subterfuge cooked up by the Russians and the Serbs to give the Russians time to move.
One must ask why that was not foreseen by NATO. Russia always wanted a zone. Its amour propre had clearly been damaged during the process, despite its part in the peace negotiations. The wording of the UN Security Council resolution is slightly ambiguous in this regard. It authorises member states to establish the international security presence, whereas it empowers the Secretary of State—I mean the Secretary-General of the UN; the Secretary of State has many responsibilities, but not that one—to establish the civil authority. That creates an ambiguity and was presumably designed to get over the difficulty of Russian involvement, but it gives the Russians some basis for arguing that they are entitled to a presence.
Reports of the movement of Russian troops in Bosnia went out on Serb radio at 10.30 am on Friday. There must have been some evidence of it earlier. Two hundred troops and their vehicles cannot have been moved out of the American zone in Bosnia without anyone noticing. During the morning, Secretary of State Albright spoke to her counterpart, Ivanov. She has said in public—and the Vice-President of the United States has said the same thing—that she was assured by Mr. Ivanov that the Russians would not move into Kosovo until their role in KFOR had been settled.
NATO could presumably still have moved at that moment. There are some questions as to why it did not. The airport is important. Because we do not have control of the airport, the roads are heavily congested, which makes it difficult to resupply NATO forces and provide food for refugees. We are now planning air drops, which were not planned originally. Not only does NATO need the airport, but it would have been a good idea to deprive


the Russians of it. The fact that they hold it gives them a means of bringing in reinforcements, which they did not have before.
Could NATO have moved during that period? If it had done so and denied the Russians the airport, our position would be considerably easier than it is. The Russians did not move into the airport until 2 am on Saturday. NATO deployed at 5 am on Saturday, which of course was too late.
As I said, it seems to me that that was a plan cooked up by Milosevic and the Russians. The Russians behaved in extraordinarily bad faith. I know that the Secretary of State must be more diplomatic in dealing with the matter. It shows extraordinary bad faith on the part of the Russians that they should have played a part in brokering a peace deal; assured the US Secretary of State that they would not move; and then moved in the middle of the night in a way that they knew would create considerable difficulties for the peacekeeping operation in Kosovo.
We should expect more of that. The Russians have 1,700 troops with SFOR in Bosnia. There are reports of more troop movements around Bjielina. Apparently troops left their barracks in Lopare and Ugljevik on Saturday for the airport at Bjielina, and on Sunday Bosnia radio reported 150 Russian troops leaving Bosnia across the Bjielina bridge for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. I assume that those troops are still in Serbia.
Russia made efforts last week to reinforce its position at Pristina airport from the air. Fortunately NATO moved quickly, and Russia was denied the overflying rights that it would have needed. That clearly was part of Russia's plan.
I know that yesterday and today negotiations have been going on between Secretary of State for Defence Cohen and his counterpart, Sergeyev. Progress was reported yesterday, but it has also been reported that Yeltsin has told Sergeyev that the Russians will not settle for anything less than a Russian zone. I hope that the issue will be resolved over the weekend at the G8 meeting or early next week at the European Union-United States meeting. I gather that President Clinton will be at both. It is important to resolve the matter as soon as possible.
Russia has wanted its own zone all along. According to press reports in The New York Times and elsewhere, it has been offered a zone of operation within the French sector. We must not create a Russian zone. The Secretary of State has said that he will not allow an east German solution to be implemented in Kosovo, or to be effected on the ground. A Russian zone of occupation, or a Russian zone in the KFOR sector, will become a Serb zone and will effectively mean the partition of Kosovo.
We need something along the lines of what is happening in Bosnia, where the Russians are deployed within the American sector, but do not have a particular zone to themselves; they are assisting in various areas. In that way, they can be valuably involved in the peacekeeping process, but without the risk of creating a zone within a zone, which may be as bad as a zone of their own.
That unforeseen problem has created a great deal of difficulty and distraction. I hope that it can be resolved soon because it is making NATO's operations much more difficult than they would otherwise be. When this is all over, we would like it looked into. A few weeks ago, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition asked the

Prime Minister for an inquiry when the war was over, a request which was rather cavalierly rejected. There were inquiries after the Falklands war and the Gulf war. I am sure that the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office will conduct their own internal inquiries into how well they did during the conflict, but there are lessons to be learned and they should be learned publicly. All the secure details of military intelligence need not be disclosed but there are lessons to be learned which should be available to the public and future Governments.
The Government of whom the Secretary of State is a member, and the previous Government, of whom I was a member, took Britain to war without needing the approval of the House of Commons to do so. They did it under prerogative powers. When one does that, there is an even stronger argument for taking a close and objective look after the event at the circumstances leading up to that military action. I should like such an inquiry to consider the diplomatic background, the military advice and the political direction of the military, which has been one of the difficult aspects of NATO's control and has made the military operations more difficult than they would otherwise have been.

Mr. Bowen Wells: Does my hon. Friend agree that the inquiry for which he calls should include all the circumstances leading up to the intervention in Kosovo, right from the time when the EU, and the Federal Republic of Germany in particular, began to persuade the international community unilaterally—without agreement—to recognise Croatia and Slovenia as independent states, as well as the conduct of the international community's relationships with Yugoslavia? [Interruption.] Yes, both Governments.

Mr. Maples: I did not have in mind quite such a wide remit. If we want to go back to 1989, the inquiry will be very long.
There are two schools of thought about whether all this was started by the precipitate recognition of Croatia and Bosnia. I think that it was all started by the rise of the completely unreasonable Serb nationalism, generated, fostered, its flames fanned, by Milosevic. Had it not been for that, these issues, albeit not easily settled, could have been peacefully settled. The real cause was the aggressive, narrow Serb nationalism of which Milosevic's policy was the apogee.

Mr. Winnick: I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman's analysis of the reasons for the conflict which broke up the former Yugoslavia, but would it not be right to say that the removal of autonomy from Kosovo played a leading part both in the burning resentments of so many people there and in the creation of the KLA?

Mr. Maples: Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right. It was in Kosovo that Milosevic discovered his talent for stirring up this kind of trouble. The removal of Kosovo's autonomy and Vojvodina's autonomy was part of his process of gaining control of the Yugoslav federal presidency, enabling him to perpetrate the horrors that he perpetrated in Croatia and Bosnia.

Mr. Robin Cook: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving us the opportunity to consider the historical perspective. Before he presses too hard for the


wide-ranging inquiry that he seeks, I should warn him that one episode on which such an inquiry must undoubtedly properly focus is why it was that the western Governments agreed to Milosevic's insistence that Kosovo be kept out of the Dayton settlement.

Mr. Maples: The Secretary of State is right that that is a question that has to be answered. I was not there and I do not know the details of what happened. But, in retrospect, if Kosovo could have been included, we would not be facing many of our present difficulties. I suspect that the Dayton agreement was difficult enough to get without trying to settle the Kosovo problem at the same time. But if the right hon. Gentleman says that he will set up the inquiry as long as it can consider that question, he has a deal.
I said that two big problems currently face NATO in Kosovo—the Russians and the KLA. I now come to the KLA. It is a big problem. It is moving in and taking over. It is creating something of a myth that it was the KLA that liberated Kosovo. No doubt many KLA members were performing extremely brave actions on the ground during the last three months or so. But we now see them patrolling the streets and they have taken over Pristina police station, or at least they had yesterday. They control the Morini border crossing and they seem to have about 90 per cent. of the German sector under their patrols in one form or another. If they are not themselves guilty of reprisals against the Serb population, I suspect that they are at least allowing them to happen. That cannot be allowed to go on.
One thing that is reinforcing the KLA in its position is its claim that the Russian presence is illegal. I understand that it refuses to disarm while that presence continues. But the KLA cannot be allowed to run things within Kosovo, and that must be made clear. It is creating a potentially extremely dangerous atmosphere.
The Secretary of State referred to that and said that he hoped that an agreement would be reached. Yesterday, there were news reports that such an agreement had been reached, but, as I understand it, it has not been signed. This morning, NATO's Secretary-General said that he expects to see the KLA disarmed within, I think, 120 days.

Mr. Robin Cook: indicated dissent.

Mr. Maples: That was the report that I read. I am glad to hear that it is wrong. We should be talking about a few days.
I realise that the process is difficult and that it may not be possible completely to disarm people. But the KLA, to the extent that its people will function in the role that they see for themselves, must be part of a civil power, supervised by that power and responsible to it in a proper and clear way. We must do that quickly.
There is some confusion—presumably brought about by the difficulty in the diplomatic negotiations—in that the Rambouillet agreement calls for the disarming of the KLA and the United Nations Security Council resolution calls for its demilitarisation. One could argue that, for diplomatic purposes, that means the same thing, but I am sure that it does not mean the same thing to the KLA.

At some point we need some clarification, if only for ourselves, of what that means, how it will be done and how long it will take.
I appreciate the difficulties, and the last thing that we want is to start a conflict between NATO and the KLA in Kosovo, but NATO will not be able to control, redevelop and stabilise Kosovo in the way that we want while the KLA still has that degree of presence and control.
The return of refugees from Albania and Macedonia is premature. I gather that 1,000 an hour are crossing at Morini. No doubt that is reasonably welcome to Macedonia because it will at least remove the instability that those refugees created, but it presents some problems. First, the refugees are clogging up the roads which NATO would otherwise be using for the deployment of its troops. Secondly, the mine clearance operation is not yet under way. As we are not yet in most of Kosovo, and will not be in all of it until Monday, it obviously cannot yet have been done. Will the Secretary of State for International Development tell us something about mine clearance—whether the Serbs have honoured their part of the military technical agreement to identify minefields and booby traps and to help to clear them, and what progress is being made in that? Are we having difficulty in supplying the basic necessities of life, such as food, water and some limited medical facilities to refugees at the rate at which they are returning?
Another sad consequence of what has happened is that we now see another group of refugees. Serbs are now leaving with their cars, tractors and trailers loaded up with their personal belongings in the same way that Albanians left a few weeks ago. We must confirm in practical terms to the Serbs in Kosovo that we will protect them and that they are entitled to continue to live there and to conduct their lives, businesses and farms there.
It is encouraging that the Secretary of State mentioned the reaction of the Orthodox Church. I think that the Patriarch has announced that he will return to Pec as a sign of encouragement or of solidarity with the Serbs who live there. I hope that that is the spirit in which it is being done. We must take that position not just for humanitarian reasons, but because, if the 200,000 Serbs who live in Kosovo all become refugees in Serbia, they will help Milosevic to feed the anti-NATO sentiments and dissatisfaction of the Serbs, and their characterisation of themselves as a victim nation.

Mr. Ben Bradshaw: I think the hon. Gentleman said that the Serbs are leaving in the same way as the Albanians, but they are not leaving in quite the same way. Does he accept that the Albanians were leaving while looking down the barrel of a gun and that the vast majority of the Serbs are leaving out of fear, whether it is justified or not?

Mr. Maples: I accept that, but almost everybody who left did so out of fear of what might happen to them. When I talked to refugees in camps at Kukes, they almost all said that they had left because of what had happened in the village previously or because of what they had heard.
I agree with the Secretary of State; there is no equivalence. There has been an organised campaign of atrocities—genocide, dare one say—against the Albanians in Kosovo. That is not happening against the Serbs, but they clearly fear for their lives and safety, and some of


them have already been killed. Nothing worse than that can happen, but appalling things have certainly happened to them and it would be a sad outcome if we succeeded in helping the Albanian Kosovans to return to Kosovo, but all the Serbs left.
Looking to the future, what is happening inside Serbia is a closed book to most of us, but it is important because we will not be able to settle the region in a stable and peaceful way while Milosevic is still in power. I understand that Seselj has left his Government, but I do not know whether that is good or bad, because I suspect that he would have been a lot worse than Milosevic. Zoran Djindjic, the leader of the Democratic party, has called on Milosevic to resign, but he at present resides in Montenegro, and has been there for the whole of the war, so that call will not carry a lot of credibility.
As the Secretary of State said, the Orthodox Church has called on Milosevic to step down, but we have to recognise that we are dealing with an old-style communist regime. Milosevic controls the army, the police, the media—just about everything. I do not expect an answer from the Secretary of State, although it would be nice to have one, but do we think that a coup could succeed—or is a civil war needed to get rid of Milosevic? We have to address that problem in some way because it will be difficult to settle the issues while Milosevic is still in power. What other levers do we have? Will the chance of the stability pact applying to the whole of south-east Europe, except for Serbia, exercise any leverage over him?
There could be problems in other parts of the Balkans—Macedonia, Vojvodina, Sanjak and, perhaps most obviously, Montenegro—and there is danger that NATO will be sucked into them. I hope that we have a policy and that we have thought through some of those questions, particularly in respect of Montenegro. The Serbs have, as recently as yesterday, started to accuse Djukanovic of conspiring with the United States to organise a coup against Milosevic in Belgrade. That sounds like the building of an excuse for intervening in Montenegro in some way.
At the same time, various groups of Montenegrins—academics, business men and the opposition—are demanding a review of their status as part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. There are 20,000 troops of the 2nd or the 3rd VJ army in Montenegro and yesterday Belgrade prevented two Montenegrin aeroplanes on a flight from Italy from landing at an airport in Montenegro. The Secretary of State praised Djukanovic, who is the only democratic leader in the region with clean hands, and we have to ask ourselves how we can prevent a Serb coup in Montenegro.
Similar things are perhaps brewing in Vojvodina. The leaders of the Hungarian community are asking for their autonomy to be revived, because they lost it at about the same time that Kosovo lost its autonomy. There are issues to be addressed there, and Milosevic is capable of stirring up trouble in Macedonia and perhaps even in Bosnia again. We need to make sure that we have considered the longer-term problems.
The longer-term stability of Kosovo depends in part on a long-term political settlement. The Rambouillet agreement called for an international meeting within three years
to determine the mechanism for a final settlement … on the basis of the will of the people".

To many people, that seemed to imply a referendum, but the United Nations Security Council resolution, under which we are operating in Kosovo, reaffirms the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It talks a lot about "autonomy" and "self-administration … pending final settlements". The only reference to the long-term future is in paragraph 11(e), which talks about
facilitating political process designed to determine Kosovo's future status, taking into account the Rambouillet accords".
That is very vague, and I imagine that it was difficult to achieve any agreement on what the resolution would say, but we have a problem to address.
The Rambouillet accords allowed the possibility of independence for Kosovo. The United Nations Security Council resolution does not explicitly do so, but it makes that reference to the Rambouillet accords, which the Serbs never agreed to or signed in the first place. Is independence a possibility or not? If not, the Kosovans will be stuck with Yugoslav passports, being called up to serve in the Yugoslav army, paying Yugoslav taxes and having to go through Yugoslav-controlled border posts and over borders across which those same Yugoslav forces were driving them in the most inhumane way a few weeks ago.
I have to ask myself whether autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is a viable future for Kosovo. I do not expect an answer today, but I hope that the Government are addressing that issue.

Mr. Hogg: At the time of the Rambouillet accords, it was contemplated that there would be sizeable Serb minority in Kosovo and, in those circumstances, devolved status within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia made sense. If the Serb minority flees Kosovo and goes to Serbia, as appears to be happening, the intellectual justification for the autonomous status of Kosovo will disappear entirely.

Mr. Maples: I take my right hon. and learned Friend's argument, but the United Nations Security Council resolution refers to the Helsinki Final Act and there are difficulties in opening up the question of border settlements. However, from a practical point of view, I do not see how autonomy will be enough, either to provide long-term security or for the KLA, which, however it is demilitarised, will not demilitarise entirely.
The stability pact is a great document and a great plan, but it will need money to back it up. I do not think that the numbers appear in it—if they do, I missed them—but considerable economic aid will be needed to help to redevelop the region and bring it into the European mainstream. There are also many unsettled matters in the Balkans outside Kosovo and they cannot be left in the air. If they are, Milosevic will stir them up. He is very good at stirring up trouble and I do not suppose that we have seen the last of his tricks.
The first phase of NATO's operation has been successful—more successful, and perhaps quicker, than any of us dared hope. The Serb military is leaving and NATO is taking over. Refugees are returning and the atrocities are being investigated by the war crimes tribunal. All that is excellent news, but in many ways the difficult phase is just beginning.
There are the immediate problems of the Russians and the KLA, and I hope that they will be soon resolved, but there will be plenty more. Milosevic has not yet run out


of tricks and while he remains in power, we should always plan for the worst. Our long-term objective must be to bring peace and stability not only to Kosovo but to the whole of former Yugoslavia. That was never going to be easy, and it is no easier now, but we will support the Government wholeheartedly in pursuing that objective.
We hope that the difficult questions that we have posed have been thought through and that plans exist to deal with the long-term and short-term difficulties. In the end, success will be measured by the return of all the refugees to all parts of Kosovo and a settlement that creates a secure and stable environment for all its citizens.

Mr. Bruce George: I welcome the new Opposition team. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) had a reasonably good war. In his speeches, he made the same criticisms as his colleagues who speak on foreign affairs without appearing to want NATO not to acquit itself well. I wish him the best of good fortune in his new post.
I welcome this further debate on Kosovo. The Government have sought to explain—and succeeded in explaining—what they were doing, not only to the House of Commons but to its various Committees, and they were prepared regularly to expose themselves to criticism from Labour and Opposition Members. I am delighted that the Foreign Secretary is going out to Kosovo next week. Perhaps he will take up the seats in the aircraft that members of the Defence Committee were going to take, and perhaps he can persuade his colleagues that, once the Executive have gone to see what has happened, the Defence Committee visit organised by the Ministry of Defence can soon be reactivated. I look forward to him coming back with good news.
The House and the country must be relieved that the worst aspect of the crisis is over, following the success of NATO's operations and the progressive and fairly speedy withdrawal of Serb forces, which is well under way. If I may amend slightly what was said by the Duke of Wellington, however, there is only one thing worse than a battle lost, and that is a battle won.
The Foreign Secretary described some of the problems that NATO, the OSCE, the UN and Governments would have to face following our success. For instance, those organisations must consider how—if it is possible—to integrate Russia in the post-war environment. Last week, both the Defence Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee received a delegation from the Duma's international relations committee. Rumours that I had instructed the police to stand guard at the entrance to the House in case the Russians made a sudden and dramatic push to occupy the Chamber proved to be only partly well-founded.
In the short term, those who return to their own territory will not find that entirely welcome. They will be returning to a ravaged country, and will encounter the danger of stepping on land mines as well as massive problems of reconstruction. The Foreign Secretary spoke of his commitment to bringing to trial those indicted of war crimes, and of the problems of the government of Kosovo. He also spoke of the difficulty of deciding what to do about the KLA, about security in the Balkan region and

about the role of international political and economic institutions such as the OSCE, the UN and the World Bank.
I trust that we shall witness the demise of Milosevic. The Serbs have not yet forgiven the Ottoman empire for what happened in the 14th century, but I hope that they will wipe the events of the last few months from their minds earlier than in the middle of the next millennium.
I cannot adequately express the pleasure and joy that I experience when I see pictures of Kosovans returning home—pictures that show their euphoria, and the sheer spontaneous pleasure of their greeting of their liberators—and note, in the same newspapers, the professional way in which NATO forces that were waiting in Macedonia moved so swiftly into Kosovo, where they are now providing security. There were one or two hiccups, of course.
Like others, I hope that the Serbs will decide to remain in that country. We do not want another war over ethnic cleansing, if ethnic cleansing happens again in a rather different way.
I think that we should congratulate all who have helped NATO to succeed in its campaign. I do not deny the right of hon. Members on either side of the House to oppose its action: I respect those with pacifist leanings—those who, in their dreams, sing "We'll keep the Serb flag flying here." I do not, however, respect those who argue that the conflict in the Balkans was nothing to do with us. I do not respect those who espouse the view that hundreds of thousands of people can be destroyed for the sake of maintaining the sanctity of what they believe international law should be. I do not respect those who quietly, surreptitiously and snidely—although apparently supporting what NATO and the Government were doing—hoped that both NATO and the Government would fall on their faces.
Many people advanced the argument—based largely on what the so-called experts were saying—that air power would never succeed. I hope that they will do the same as John Keegan, who admitted that, despite his great expertise, he had got it entirely wrong. I will not join, for instance, the manic Norwegian television broadcaster who, after his country defeated England, rattled off a series of names including Lord Nelson, Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill; but I could certainly do so. My list would include a number of Members of Parliament, as well as journalists, academics and alleged experts. I hope that the people to whom I have referred will at least have the decency to admit that they were wrong in expressing with such certainty the view that NATO would fail.
One of my colleagues on the Defence Committee—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where are they?"] Some are here, and I admire them for being here. Others have wisely got out of the way. The colleague to whom I refer, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt), has gone to Russia. If he were here, I would have mentioned this to him. In one speech, he managed to make so many mistakes that I thought he must have missed the lecture at staff college. He said, prematurely, "Our strategy has failed". He also called for the resignation of the Chief of the Defence Staff in the middle of the war, which I do not regard as very sensible. The only crime of the Chief of the Defence Staff was that of supporting the Government, which I consider a rather bizarre reason for demanding his resignation. The hon. Gentleman added:


Two months later, as the ground option evaporates, we urgently need an exit … It is clear that our allies want a way out … We have fundamentally misread the nature of the conflict … Having broken international law in attacking Yugoslavia, let us now stand up for the principle of self-determination."—[Official Report, 18 May 1999; Vol. 331, c. 944–46.]
I can only say that I am delighted for the Opposition that the purge that has taken place has not yet given the hon. Gentleman a position on the Front Bench, although that may come later.
The alliance held together—it actually held together, although there were those who hoped against hope that it would implode; and, as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said, it will emerge strengthened by its experience, and by the criticism from both external and internal opponents.
There were those in the alliance whose enthusiasm was less than total. I am thinking, for instance, of an interesting article that I read only this week in a publication of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, and of the less than extreme enthusiasm of the Czech Republic, although the President can be exempted from that criticism. The Greek Government did what had to be done, although I cannot express the same admiration for the media there or for public opinion.
I was delighted when the Foreign Secretary said that the efforts of Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Montenegro during the war deserved to be properly rewarded. I hope that they will not be rewarded by some long-term commitment to consider their application to join NATO. When it came to the crunch, they delivered. I understand that the Bulgarians are offering to send troops to work alongside British experts in mine clearance, and I feel that we should express our thanks and admiration.
May I pick up a point raised by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon? Over the years, Parliaments and royal commissions have had ample opportunities to examine wars won and occasionally, if not wars lost, then battles lost. My favourite example is a wonderful inquiry that was undertaken in the early days of the failure of the British, the French and the Turks to capture Sebastopol. The Jameson raid, the Boer war and Gallipoli all produced great opportunities for royal commissions and Parliaments to identify what went right and, more important, what went wrong.
I think it entirely right to identify this rather smart move by the Russians in evading our intelligence services. I certainly advise the hon. Gentleman to look at the events that led to the invasion of the Falkland Islands, when the Argentines were able to move far more than the Russians. They were able to attack the islands, and, I believe, to purchase 500 maps of them from The Stationery Office. I had a copy, but the last Government denied that they existed. The map is stamped by the military governor of Argentina and by the civil commissioner, Rex Hunt. The Argentines managed to move out of this country a vast quantity of their financial resources, and to get on to a war footing without alerting intelligence, and without the Cabinet committee realising what was happening.
When there is any move to criticise an alleged failure, perhaps one should look at other failures. If he is still alive, Lord Franks can perhaps be revived and brought to do an inquiry, which will certainly exonerate NATO and the United Kingdom. I hope that that will be done, if he is still available for the commission.
The Defence Committee has a long tradition of inquiring into wars. We did three inquiries into the Falklands war; all were good reports. We did two reports on the Gulf war. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon will not have seen the press release that the Defence Committee issued last week, which said:
The Committee has reconfirmed its commitment to undertake an inquiry into the lessons of Operation Allied Force following the conclusion of any peace settlement in Kosovo and once the situation there has begun to stabilise. Previous Defence Committees undertook substantial inquiries into the lessons of the Falklands conflict and the Gulf War.
More detailed terms of reference for the Committee's initial interim inquiry will be published at the appropriate time, but the inquiry is likely to focus on the lessons of the Kosovo crisis for NATO's force structure, decision-making processes and strategy development. It is also likely to consider the effectiveness of the Alliance's intelligence, surveillance, targeting and reconnaissance capabilities. The performance of UK weapons systems and their interoperability with those of other Allies will also be examined as the evidence becomes available.
Further announcements will be made in due course.

Mr. Nicholas Soames: The inquiries that the Select Committee has undertaken into earlier conflicts have been extremely valuable. As the hon. Gentleman knows, they are taken seriously in the Ministry of Defence. Will he consider including in the early part of his inquiry the difficult—I mean no political ill will by saying it—and tortuous negotiations on the diplomatic and political front before the conflict began, which would normally concern the Foreign Affairs Committee? The Defence and Foreign Affairs Committees might consider doing that part of the inquiry jointly, thereby adding even more weight to their conclusions.

Dr. Godman: That is a good idea.

Mr. George: It might be a good idea, but I should like first to liaise with the Foreign Affairs Committee. I was a great reader of its report on Sandline International and Sierra Leone. I would prefer to liaise, as opposed to co-ordinating. Our remit is defence and security. It is important that we do not trespass too far into any other possible inquiries.

Mr. Wells: May I make a suggestion? The Select Committee on International Development report on Kosovo and the humanitarian crisis might be a starting point for the inquiry of the hon. Gentleman's Committee and that of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. George: I have read that report. Having been to Kukes—I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's Committee got as far as Kukes—we were able to form our own opinion. I have also read his speeches. Again, it would be far better if he pursued his own inquiry, rather than merging it—if he pursues it—with that of the Defence Committee.
Over the past 12 months or so, the Defence Committee has undertaken two substantial inquiries: one into the NATO summit and the future of NATO, the second into the strategic defence review. Both the inquiries will have to have a Kosovan dimension. We will be able to see the extent to which the SDR—although it has not yet fully unfolded—has been affected by events in Kosovo.
I digress slightly. Although I accept the Government's views on the Reserves, I was delighted to see that one of the heroes of the early days of the entry into Kosovo was a member of the German reserve. That German officer defused a major crisis between the Albanians and the Serbs. The gentleman, a major I believe, was a professor of oriental languages—oh, that our own Reserves had such an opportunity of proving their military competence. [Interruption.] I do not think that the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), should mock the lack of language abilities. I heard him speaking Hungarian three months ago; it had to be translated into English. I am not attempting to be hostile.
The two inquiries that we have done could have the added dimension of Kosovo. It will not be a negative inquiry. Mistakes were made; of course they were. I am not yet aware of any war that has been fought perfectly, although Milosevic claims that his war was. He obtained the same victory as Custer at Little Big Horn and Napoleon at Waterloo. I can imagine Custer down to his last three men and saying, "We really whacked them this time, didn't we?"
Leaving aside the claims of Milosevic, most other wars have their mistakes, but we must learn from our mistakes. We must see what we did well; we did much that was good. Let us hope that we can avoid such crises in future.
I congratulate not only the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development, but the Secretary of State for Defence, who, I understand, is in the Ukraine. Without being seen to be seeking a knighthood or anything further, I should like to compliment the Prime Minister as well. It has been said, "Keep your head while others behind or opposite you are losing theirs." What he did was absolutely right. He can be rightly proud of his contribution.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: I, too, welcome the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) to his first foreign affairs debate. He has moved smoothly from defence to foreign affairs. He will discover shortly that the only difference between them is that, thankfully, in foreign affairs, we do not place such reliance on impenetrable acronyms as appears to be necessary in defence.
Rightly, the hon. Gentleman paid generous tribute to his predecessor, who has enjoyed a distinguished parliamentary career. I, too, shall miss him, not least because he has been an ever-present example of the strength of the adversarial system in contemporary politics.
The debate is something of an interim report. I expect that we shall have more such debates from time to time. As others have said, much has been achieved, but much more remains to be done.
If one passage in the Foreign Secretary's speech attracted virtually unanimous support, it was his powerful account of the importance of dealing properly with those who have been guilty of war crimes. He will, of course, be aware that the extremely powerful and professional chief prosecutor, Louise Arbour, has, in recognition of her

considerable talents, been appointed to the supreme court of Canada, which means that, after September, the effective leadership that she has been able to give will no longer be available.
It is obviously essential to ensure that Louise Arbour is replaced by someone of equal merit and personal courage. The House may remember that, on one occasion, she went to Kosovo but was turned away at the border. The strength of the International War Crimes Tribunal clearly depends on the quality of the leadership available. I hope that the Government—the Foreign Secretary is nodding in recognition of my point—will ensure that a suitable successor is found.
These occasions, shortly after the end of a conflict, are sometimes seen as an opportunity to draw lessons from a successful military action. When a military action has been a failure, the lessons to be drawn are often much more obvious and provide a readily understood basis for the necessary remedies. When a military action has been successful, however, it is often too easy to draw invalid conclusions, not least if they are hasty and informed only by contemporary evidence.
In recent time, the most obvious illustration of that is the belief—almost ineradicably lodged in the mind of the public after the Gulf war—that so-called smart weapons are in all cases capable of pinpoint accuracy, and that so-called surgical strikes can be effected without risk to anyone or anything other than the designated targets. Those have, to some extent, become myths of our time.
We are at some risk of repeating that flawed approach in precipitate judgments to the effect that air power on its own succeeded in this case, and that it will provide a universally valid approach in future conflicts in which NATO countries, with proper regard for the sensibilities of their citizens, expose their forces to no more risk than bombing from, say, 15,000 ft. I believe that it is much too early to reach such conclusions from the military action that has just been terminated. Moreover, the evidence that is so far available would not justify that conclusion.
What apparently succeeded in this case was a combination of three elements: first, intensive air operations; secondly, strenuous diplomatic efforts, in which Russia's role was significant, even if its motives were not entirely laudable or even always understandable; and, thirdly, the credible threat of ground action, with the accompaniment of NATO's demonstrable willingness to impose its will by the use of its massive war-fighting capability. That raises, at least for consideration, the very substantial probability that, if air operations had begun at the right tempo and intensity, if diplomatic efforts had been sufficiently strenuous initially, and if the threat of ground action had been credible from the beginning, the Milosevic regime might have capitulated earlier.
Never before has such a large-scale military action been undertaken to prosecute a policy of attempting to prevent ethnic cleansing and to secure basic human rights. However, we should realise that the legacy of the action will be an expectation among those who are ethnically repressed around the world, or at least within NATO's range, that NATO will intervene in their plight. The expectation cannot be justified, and there are bound to be occasions of deep disappointment. The intervention that occurred in this case was made because of an almost unique assembly of factors that are unlikely to be repeated.
The first factor was the sustained intransigence of a dictatorial leader. The second was the proximity of that leader, and the evil that was sought to be prevented, to several newly joined and aspirant NATO countries. The third was the possibility of uncontrollable instability in the region. The final factor was ethnic repression on a scale unseen in Europe since the second world war, but the effects of which were daily seen on our news bulletins. The unique combination of those elements created a climate in which NATO action, if not inevitable, was virtually so.
If we ever doubted the legitimacy of our actions, NATO forces are daily finding a catalogue of horror that is indescribable. I do not know if others have felt this way, but I have certainly begun to feel that language is inadequate to convey the depths of the depravity to which the paramilitary and military units of the Milosevic regime have sunk. They have systematically terrorised and brutalised the defenceless people of Kosovo. This was no episode of savage war fighting between equals, but rather a cowardly, despicable and cynical abuse of defenceless men, women and children, with women and children deliberately targeted.
We have been concerned about the Russians' unilateral action. We should be concerned not only about that action, but about the length of time that it seems to be taking to reach an agreement, despite discussions between President Yeltsin and Mr. Clinton. Let us suppose that no agreement can be reached, and that the extent of Russia's intransigence on the matter—driven by domestic considerations—may be unfathomable. If that is so, what then? Was there—I asked the Defence Secretary this question the other day—no intelligence assessment of the risk of that type of Russian adventurism? If there was no such assessment, why not?
The template of Bosnia is available, against which all this should be judged. At Tusla, the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) and I saw for ourselves a practical illustration of the special arrangements that could be made in Bosnia. But what if such arrangements cannot be made in Kosovo? What then? I do not know the answer to those questions, but we should at least be asking them, in the hope that we may be able to provide answers.

Mr. Dalyell: Apparently there is a Serb military refusal to leave the village of Mitrovica unless the Russians are prepared to stay there.

Mr. Campbell: I do not understand that to be any part of the United Nations resolution. If there is such a refusal, it raises in my mind a suspicion that the Serbs who refuse to leave are doing so because they believe that, once they have left, NATO forces might find evidence of their activities, which might make them feel extremely uncomfortable. Those who do not want to go, or want only the representatives of a particular nation to be present when they leave, seem—on the face of it—to have something to hide.
As today's speeches have made clear, the commitment to protect and to secure the human rights of the people of Kosovo has not ended with the cessation of bombing. Military strategists and politicians previously called for—if I may borrow a phrase—a permissive environment to precede the possible entry of ground troops. Now we have to have create a permissive environment to which the

refugees feel that they can return in safety. However, as earlier speakers have recognised, we are right to acknowledge that there is an enormous potential for a return to conflict, motivated by revenge and the political aspirations of the Kosovo Liberation Army, and that, for peace to last, an extraordinary degree of commitment and resolve will be required.
NATO's resolution of the stand-off with Russia in Pristina; demilitarisation of the KLA; safe return of the refugees; and the future of the Kosovar Serbs will all provide key tests of the agreement's workability. There are some unhelpful signs. We have already witnessed revenge attacks by KLA and Kosovar Albanians on Kosovar Serbs. The attacks may increase as more refugees return to their own homes, and NATO must deal with them even-handedly and protect the Kosovar Serbs, whose fear of reprisals has led—as hon. Members have said—to another wave of refugees. As many as 37,000 Serb civilians, so far, are said to have retreated with the Yugoslav army.
As hon. Members have also said, some elements of the KLA have threatened to use force against Russian troops. NATO must make it clear that an attack on any part of the international force will be regarded as an attack on the whole force and will bring an immediate and unconditional response.
Self-evidently, too, the campaign's long-term effects will be felt outside of Kosovo. Macedonia and Montenegro will require sustained western guidance and support, whereas relations with Russia are probably at their most delicate since the end the cold war. It is said that Macedonia is on a knife edge. Certainly, there is potential for ethnic tension to escalate into violence. International organisations and foreign Governments must provide Macedonia with the substantial long-term assistance that it needs to deal with the economic consequences of the Kosovo conflict. It has long been feared that Milosevic would turn his attention to Montenegro, although thus far Serbian efforts to replace Mr. Djukanovic have failed. We must be committed to protecting Montenegro from any attempted invasion by Serbian forces.
We must not underestimate the influence of the Russians during the negotiations. The frequent shuttle diplomacy by Mr. Chernomyrdin was of pivotal importance in securing a peace deal, but the unilateral actions of the military, obviously at odds with the Russian Foreign Ministry, in seizing Pristina airport, have left us embarrassed and have left Russia a hollow short-term victory, the repercussions of which have yet to be fully realised. The Russian peacekeepers must be given an explicit outline of their responsibilities and their relationship with NATO in Kosovo. It must be made clear that the Russians will not be given a zone in which to constitute de facto partition and that they will have to work alongside NATO troops in one or more zones.
Only the safe return of the refugees to their homes will demonstrate that the settlement has worked. Repatriation has to be voluntary. It is correct to maintain the temporary refugee status that we have accorded to those who have left Kosovo, but there can be no question of forcibly bussing refugees back into Kosovo before adequate preparations have been made for their safety. We cannot prevent the spontaneous return of refugees, but no one should be left in any doubt about the risks.
The rebuilding programme will require unparalleled determination on the part of the people of Kosovo, who have suffered a horror unimaginable to westerners. The mental, and all too frequently physical, scars of recent times will not heal quickly, but let us hope that a successful programme of long-term reconstruction by the west will help to create a peaceful environment for future generations to live and flourish in.
One of the more pressing tasks is the restoration of the rights and assets of the refugees, who have been stripped of their identity. Restoring their property and civil rights will be a task of epic proportions which must be handled with considerable delicacy. The legal framework for the issue of new documents will be problematic. Will they be Former Republic of Yugoslavia documents or will they be temporary protectorate documents? Will the refugees accept temporary protectorate documents or will they be looking for something else? Will such documents be acceptable if they want to travel throughout the world?
It will inevitably fall to the European Union and the United States to cover the greatest proportion of the costs. If my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) is fortunate enough to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker, she will want to concentrate on refugees and on whether the aid from Britain will come from the budget of the Department for International Development or from the contingency fund. My hon. Friend has already had some exchanges with the Secretary of State for International Development on that. It is entirely right that the right hon. Lady is here to wind up the debate, because we have moved on from the military, through the political, to the issue of aid, development and refugees.
When NATO action against Kosovo began at the end of March I said that it was a bad business that might turn out to be a bloody one. I have been proved right. The decision to risk the lives of young men and women in war is the hardest that any Prime Minister has to take. That has been true of past conflicts, it is true of the present conflict and it will be true of future conflicts. The United Kingdom has fortunately escaped casualties so far, but we should not be blind to the risks even if we have enjoyed good fortune on this occasion. NATO has achieved what many thought impossible, securing peace with the threat but without the need or costs of a ground invasion. A ground invasion in the face of opposition would have involved much greater casualties.
I began by saying that the hard work was still to do. I fear that there are horrors aplenty still to come. We should acknowledge in the aftermath of the victory that the refugees will continue to be our responsibility long after they have returned to their homes. Long-term peace in the Balkans will depend largely on the durability of the current agreement.

Mrs. Alice Mahon: I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I shall have to leave before the end of the debate owing to a long-standing engagement.
We are considering the murder of thousands of Kosovans, the killing and injuring by bombing of thousands of Serbs and the suffering of 800,000 refugees. I expected

some trivialisation from my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, but I was saddened that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who holds great office, felt it appropriate to indulge in political point scoring at the expense of another party and individuals who disagree with his point of view.

Mr. Winnick: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mrs. Mahon: No.

Mr. Winnick: She has mentioned me.

Mrs. Mahon: I did not.

Mr. Winnick: Yes she did; the hon. Member for Walsall.

Mrs. Mahon: I am sorry, I meant my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George).
Anyone who has seen today's headlines and the horrendous dots on the map in The Independent showing where the atrocities took place realises that this is a terrible situation. I remember taking a petition to Downing street after the gassing of 8,000 Kurds at Halabja. We have seen such horrors before. I also remember visiting a camp in Afghanistan. During the mid-1990s, I condemned the killing of 30,000 Kurds by a NATO country. Sadly, we have seen horrendous atrocities all too regularly.
It is no secret that I opposed NATO's war on Yugoslavia. I have always believed that it was illegal and immoral. Even more tragic is the fact that as we study the agreement of 3 June, it appears to have been unnecessary. The illegality is clear. That opinion has been expressed by people with far more knowledge of the law than I have. NATO broke its charter, which pledges its signatories to refrain from the threat or use of force inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. It also explicitly recognises the primary responsibility of the Security Council of the UN for the maintenance of international peace and security. In bypassing UN approval for the bombing of Yugoslavia, NATO violated its basic obligation.
I warn those who have had a good war and are now indulging in offensive attacks on others that a grave precedent has been set that could threaten world peace for many years to come. If NATO can arrogate to itself the role of world policeman outside any framework of international law, the message to the rest of the world is that only force counts.
The bombing of Yugoslavia could not be justified on the basis of humanitarian concerns. Unlike NATO, the international peace movement has repeatedly condemned ethnic cleansing by all sides in Yugoslavia, whether the victims are Kosovars, Croats, Serbs or Bosnian Muslims. I want those responsible for perpetrating such horrendous crimes to be brought to justice just as much as anyone else in the Chamber does. There is no place in a civilised society for people who commit such crimes.
Early in the break-up of Yugoslavia, the United States and some other NATO countries chose to demonise one of the groups of people who were suffering. In Croatia and Bosnia, between 1991 and 1995, the media—directed by the USA and others—focused on Serb crimes and played down those committed by Croats and, in some


cases, Muslims. There was no moral indignation in the media or from western leaders when 300,000 Serbs in Krajina were driven out of their homes by Croatian forces directed by President Tudjman, who should also be indicted for war crimes. I hear no outcry for that to happen, so I will not hold my breath.
During the past four years nothing has changed. The Serbs as a people are demonised in an increasingly racist way. That dehumanisation makes their suffering count for less. In the past few days, more than 30,000 Serbs have been forced to leave their homes in Kosovo. It has been claimed that that is different because the ethnic cleansing was directed by a Government, but the Serbs are leaving through fear. That is a subtle difference, and the Serbs feel just as bad.
For thousands of the Serbs in Kosovo who are leaving in their tractors in those sad little columns, it is the second time that they have been ethnically cleansed and had to leave. Many Serbs from Krajina settled in Kosovo. I hear little sympathy from the media or from our leaders, in some cases.
I watched a BBC News 24 programme last night in which the Secretary of State for Defence dismissed the Serbs' plight by saying that if they were innocent of war crimes, they could stay in Kosovo. There were pictures of young children on buses that were being stoned. Kate Adie appeared in the same piece, hugging an Albanian child. There was a little Serb child peering from a bus as stones were being flung at him. I found the icy indifference to the Serb child chilling. I do not like to pick out reporters individually for criticism, but that was an appalling scene to witness.
We need more assurances and more detail about the role that the KLA will play in Kosovo. I have a sad feeling that we are seeing a mass exodus of Serbs from Kosovo and we will end up with an almost completely ethnically pure Kosovo, just as we have an almost completely ethnically pure Croatia. The Serbs—Europe's untouchables—will be driven back once again.
I said at the beginning that NATO's first humanitarian war would quickly become a humanitarian disaster. I think that I have been proved right. As it became clear that NATO was willing to kill by bombing from 15,000 ft, it was also clear that many innocent civilian casualties—Serbs and Albanians alike—would be inevitable. It also became clear that the real bombing strategy was to make life intolerable for the civilian population of Yugoslavia, and that was revealed by the commander of the air strikes.
Some 1,500 Serbs have been killed and 5,000 injured, 30 per cent. of them children. That in itself is a war crime under the Geneva convention, which clearly outlaws the targeting of civilian facilities and people. NATO deliberately killed journalists, a make-up girl and civilians when it bombed the television studio, and our leaders described it as a legitimate target. They were wrong, and that bombing was a war crime.

Mr. Soames: Many of us have admired the hon. Lady's principled stand, even if we do not agree with her, but none of us could accept that NATO deliberately killed civilians. It did not ever deliberately kill civilians. It is an unfortunate fact that attack from the air, even with

precision-guided weapons, is bound to lead to casualties. To suggest that NATO deliberately killed journalists is an outrageous and terrible thing to say.

Mrs. Mahon: It happens to be true. NATO spokesmen and members of my own Government said that those journalists were a legitimate target. That is on the record. NATO also destroyed electricity and water supplies to the civilian population, as well as bombing their roads, bridges, railways and factories. NATO took away from the Serbs the means of earning a living. It also caused massive structural damage in Kosovo, the country they were saving for the Albanian refugees.
I wish the BBC and others would stop referring to the dangers of unexploded ordnance. Land mines laid by retreating Serb military are a vicious and unacceptable weapon of war, aimed more at civilians than at retreating armies, and so are unexploded NATO cluster bombs. They are mines dropped from 16,000 ft. Some of those bombs have killed civilians, including women and children, in Serbia. In Surdulica, 11 children were incinerated or blown to bits by NATO bombs—I have the pictures from Reuters and other news networks. Do those children's mothers feel any less grief than the Albanian mother who saw her child mown down by a machine gun? I think not. They, too, have dead children to mourn and grieve.
Much has been said about the environmental damage inflicted by NATO's bombing. When I visited Yugoslavia, I witnessed at first hand the damage to the Danube. The bombing of bridges is blocking the river, destroying trade with neighbouring countries and damaging the economy. The bombing of petrochemical and nitrate fertiliser plants in Pancevo and other areas has released considerable quantities of toxic chemicals into the Danube and into the atmosphere. The Danube, the Sava and other water courses have also been polluted by sewage treatment works. In Novi Sad, which was bombed continuously, the sewage works are damaged beyond repair and the drinking water has gone. That will cause health problems for a long time. Who will pay for the reconstruction—or do those Serbs not deserve a clean water supply because they happen to have an evil, wicked leader? Are we going to leave them as we left the victims in Iraq?
The settlement of 3 June shows that the entire war, with its thousands of deaths and massive suffering, and its destruction of an entire country, was unnecessary. NATO went to war to impose the Rambouillet ultimatum, which demanded the occupation of Kosovo exclusively by NATO troops who would have impeded access to Yugoslavia, including all ports, airports, roads and railways and been immune from all legal process. That is now well known. However, the ultimatum also provided for the secession of Kosovo after three years.
The 3 June settlement is a significant retreat from NATO's demands at Rambouillet, because the United Nations is now involved. Russia played a large part in helping to bring about the peace. It should be included in the peacekeeping, and I am glad that people have asked questions about that. If NATO had been prepared to make those compromises at Rambouillet, the whole war might have been avoided, because the sticking points for the Serbs were occupation and secession. The Yugoslav Parliament made it clear that it would accept an international force under the United Nations.
Had we had negotiators who really wanted a negotiated settlement, we would have got one. George Kenny, a former Yugoslav desk officer at the US Department of State, has pointed out that the US wanted to bomb Yugoslavia and wrote the Rambouillet ultimatum conditions in a form that no country would accept. Kenny quotes press sources close to the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, as being confidently briefed that the intention was to set the bar higher than the Serbs could accept, in order to justify the bombing. That will all come out in time, and when it does it will mark a shameful phase in our history.
I believe that the price to be paid for the war will be incalculable, first for the people of the area and, secondly, for our relations with the rest of the world. We who were against the war have nothing to apologise for except to say that we are sorry that there have been any victims. That is a good thing to say. It would have been far preferable to reach a settlement at the beginning, before we ruined a country, killed so many people and unleashed the madness that we have seen in the newspapers today.
I do not apologise for criticising NATO's actions. It took sides in a civil war which, like all civil wars, was bloody and terrible. I once again apologise for its victims, but they are not on my conscience.
I think that there will be an ethnically pure Kosovo. I do not think that the KLA is a stable force; it was certainly not elected by its people. It is taking up positions, and we know that in Prizren, for example, it has declared itself as the police force. I have read of only one instance—it involved the Americans—in which NATO forces have disarmed KLA members. They are not an organised force and they could create even more chaos for their people.
We need seriously to consider what role there is for the Russians and the United Nations. We need more international people who are not members of NATO to go to Kosovo, and we definitely need an international police presence. I want to know who will help the people of Serbia, and especially the children. There are 10.5 million Serbs who are not called Slobodan Milosevic; many of them demonstrated against him and would dearly like to see the back of him. Do we seriously want to make them even greater victims than they are now?
We have sent a dangerous message to the smaller nations that might be called rogue nations. They know that they cannot take on a super-power. I never thought that NATO could be defeated. How could the biggest military alliance in the world, with all that new technology, be defeated by a small country? The smaller nations know that they cannot beat a super-power and NATO, so they might turn their attention to non-NATO nations. Those nations have nuclear weapons. Israel has disregarded a peace accord for five years; and Belarus—an unstable nation—has already asked whether nuclear weapons can be resited on its soil. The smaller nations will want to become nuclear powers themselves and will develop weapons of mass destruction.

Sir John Stanley: My view of the recent conflict is diametrically opposed to that of the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon), but at least her contribution demonstrates that freedom of expression is alive and well in the House.
The war has gone through the remorseless progress of all previous wars, with a prelude, a conflict and an aftermath. The conflict began and ended in the air, and in my judgment it was won from the air. The media coverage showed an extraordinary concentration on what went wrong in the air campaign, but the real story was how much went right.
Over 78 days allied air crews of a multinational force engaged in extraordinarily complex air operations under a materially dangerous surface-to-air threat and in weather conditions that were for much of the time unfavourable, none the less achieving levels of accuracy and precision that are wholly unprecedented and unparalleled in any previous air conflict of this scale. We cannot praise too highly those in the air forces who were responsible for that achievement.
The Foreign Secretary, wholly understandably, displayed loyalty to his NATO political colleagues, but from my perspective the quality of the civil leadership during the conflict was pretty uneven. Among the European members of NATO, too many leaders and senior politicians were too ready to clutch at every available propaganda straw offered by Milosevic in order to bring the bombing campaign to a premature conclusion.
On the other side of the Atlantic there was a distinct impression of presidential wavering whenever it seemed possible that offensive ground operations might have to be engaged in. In striking contrast, the Prime Minister has shown an unwavering resolution and a total readiness to contemplate all options necessary to bring victory to the NATO forces. In doing so, he performed over the past two and a half months a signal service for NATO's future credibility.
The Foreign Secretary said:
One of the real tragedies for Kosovo and for Serbia is that President Milosevic did not accept the package offered at Rambouillet, which would have given Serbia a better result than it now has"—[Official Report, 14 June 1999; Vol. 333, c. 29.]
I wish I could believe that to be the case. I have an unhappy feeling that if Milosevic was given the option to sign up to United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 or to the Rambouillet terms, he would sign up to resolution 1244, which gives him substantially more wriggle room; and we know how dangerous it is to give Milosevic wriggle room.
There are two substantial points on which NATO has given material ground to Milosevic in order to bring about the settlement. The first was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples). In the Rambouillet terms there is a clear statement in paragraph 3 of chapter 8 that after three years,
an international meeting shall be convened to determine a mechanism for the final settlement for Kosovo, on the basis of the will of the people".
That commitment is tacked into UN resolution 1244 only on the basis of being taken into account. The significance of that paragraph—I think that it was the single most important paragraph in persuading the Kosovo representatives to sign up at Rambouillet—is that it opened the door to the possibility of an independent Kosovo. I was very grateful to the Prime Minister for the answer that he gave me, confirming that that passage in the Rambouillet terms would indeed have opened the door to the independence of Kosovo.
The Prime Minister said:
Independence for Kosovo was not part of the Rambouillet accords, although the idea of having a later conference to determine the matter was."—[Official Report, 8 June 1999; Vol. 332, c. 474.]
I fear that the concession to Milosevic has taken the possibility of independence for Kosovo off the negotiating table. As we have seen on television, since the end of the war Milosevic has been crowing that he has safeguarded the continuing incorporation of Kosovo in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Mr. Dalyell: If the right hon. Gentleman is right, as I believe that he may well be, does he see the KLA meekly surrendering its arms?

Sir John Stanley: That question is at present unanswerable. However, my judgment is that, although the KLA may stop displaying arms in public, I should be immensely surprised if large numbers of arms were not secreted in various parts of Kosovo.
The second concession that should arouse great concern in the House is the wording of paragraph 8 of appendix B to chapter 7 of the Rambouillet accords. I shall read the key sentence because it is so crucial. There was a requirement that
NATO personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters.
That paragraph is profoundly important and should be retained. It should be taken together with what is said in paragraph 21, which states:
In carrying out its authorities under this Chapter, NATO is authorised to detain individuals and, as quickly as possible, turn them over to appropriate officials.
The significance of those paragraphs is to be found in the context of what is being done to bring the war criminals to justice. As we know all too well from the bitter experience of what happened in Bosnia, where Karadzic and Mladic and the other leading war criminals are still free, the sending out of scene-of-the-crime investigators, the painstaking collection of evidence and the issuing of indictments against individuals for war crimes have no value whatever in the absence of arrangements for international powers of arrest in the locations where the war criminals are.
I was profoundly depressed by the passage in the Foreign Secretary's speech in which he said that Milosevic dare not set foot outside Serbia's borders for fear of arrest. That implies that, as long as Milosevic maintains his position inside Serbia's borders, he is absolutely free from the possibility of arrest and of indictment for the war crimes for which he is due to be charged.
The Foreign Secretary also said that no effort would be spared to bring the war criminals to justice. I totally support that sentiment, but we cannot ignore the absence of the crucial last link in the chain—the link beyond the indictment to the arrest. I hope that the Secretary of State for International Development, when she winds up the debate, will say how it is proposed that the people indicted for war crimes in Kosovo will be arrested. Perhaps the Foreign Secretary will intervene to clarify that matter, because all the provisions in appendix B of the Rambouillet accords, which previously were the subject

of a clearly stated NATO position, have effectively been dropped as part of the loose incorporation of the accords into UN resolution 1244.

Mr. Robin Cook: The right hon. Gentleman is building a very large house on stilts on the proposition that the Rambouillet accords have somehow been abandoned. They have not been abandoned. They are referred to specifically in the UN resolution as the instruction, not to Milosevic on this occasion, but to the civil administrator, who will operate under the direct instruction of the United Nations and report to the Secretary-General. We have a firmer, more hands-on international basis to implement Rambouillet in Kosovo than we had before.
The right hon. Gentleman's earlier point that independence for Kosovo had been ruled out is false. Neither Britain nor any of our allies favour independence for Kosovo. That was not an objective of the campaign. However, none of the options laid out at Rambouillet has been taken off the negotiating table by the Security Council resolution: indeed, paragraph 11(a) of the resolution specifies that what the international civil administration does in carrying out the Rambouillet accords will be "pending a final settlement". The option of that final settlement after the interim period is present in the Security Council resolution with every bit as much force as it was in the Rambouillet accords.

Sir John Stanley: I am glad to hear what the Foreign Secretary has said. I can only rest my remarks on the text of the resolution.

Mr. Cook: That was the text.

Sir John Stanley: The text speaks of taking the Rambouillet accords into account, which is a very tenuous matter. Although I do not want to delay the House by developing this into a long exchange, will the Foreign Secretary give the House a clear assurance that the provisions for NATO forces to enter any part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and to exercise their powers to detain individuals, as stated clearly in the Rambouillet accords, will be carried into effect at an early date?

Mr. Cook: First, the oft-quoted passage on the right of NATO to travel through the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is a standard element of all similar status-of-forces agreements, including the one signed by Milosevic—without much murmur—in relation to Bosnia. The identical language was included in the annexe to Rambouillet. I was at Rambouillet, and I can tell the House that the Serb side raised no objections to that usage at the time. Moreover, in the military-technical agreement it is made clear that there will have to be a status-of-forces agreement of that character.
On the question of arrest, the right hon. Gentleman should join the real world. There is no immediate prospect of our being able to enter Belgrade and arrest Milosevic in the face of the 200,000 VJ troops in Serbia. That has always been one of the facts of the matter. However, the right hon. Gentleman should not understate the Government's commitment to effecting the arrest of war criminals wherever possible, nor the effectiveness of


British troops in achieving that. That is why, only last week, we carried out the arrest of another war criminal in the British sector in Bosnia.

Sir John Stanley: I think that the Foreign Secretary's response exposes the deficiency that I have highlighted. I am grateful to him for making it clear that there are no prospects, in the near term or possibly ever, of bringing the indicted war criminals to justice. I strongly support all the Foreign Secretary has done to promote international courts and the concept of international criminal justice. However, if that concept is to translate into reality, there can be no safe haven for indicted criminals.
The third part of my speech relates to events before the conflict broke out. Amid the euphoria of peace and the moving mass return home of the refugees, I realise that questions about what happened before the conflict may not seem appropriate. However, I make no apology for asking those questions. During the past 10 weeks, thousands of people have been brutally murdered and hundreds of thousands have lost all but their lives. Expenditure has run into billions of pounds, and billions more will doubtless be spent to repair the damage incurred. It is proper to ask, therefore, whether the horrendous humanitarian disaster in Kosovo might have been averted.
In his recent evidence to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Foreign Secretary put interesting new information into the public domain, making it clear that the Government had had knowledge of an impending humanitarian disaster in Kosovo. On 14 April, at paragraph 109, the Foreign Secretary said that
it has been reported in the press (and I can confirm it is true) that there was a plan developed in Belgrade known as Operation Horseshoe which was for the cleansing of Kosovo of its Kosovo population.
In paragraph 111, he continued:
The spring offensive was planned; we knew it was coming; we knew it would be accompanied by ethnic cleansing.
If we knew that the spring offensive would bring ethnic cleansing and barbarity unprecedented in post-war Europe, did the NATO countries do all that they reasonably could to deter Milosevic from giving Operation Horseshoe the go-ahead? I should like to explore the issue of deterrence using both ground forces and the air threat.
Serious questions arise over the use of ground forces, particularly for the Americans. In the weeks or months before the air campaign, when Milosevic was presumably deciding whether he could get away with his infamous operation, even a modest deployment of the United States rapid reaction force—the marines—into the border areas of Kosovo could have had a profound impact on his calculations. No such deployment was made. In fairness to the Americans, I must point out that no European NATO country made an advance deployment of rapid reaction forces. A major deterrent opportunity was therefore missed.
That error was compounded by what was said in public about the use of ground forces. NATO countries, including our own, made it clear at the outset that no ground forces would be used for a forced entry into Kosovo. This matter is too important for party politics,

so I must point out that the same position was taken by my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench. We must ask whether a different position might have had a material impact on Milosevic. I believe that if he had known in January or February that all options, including forced entry, remained open—the position ultimately adopted by NATO 10 weeks later—Operation Horseshoe might not have been given the go-ahead.

The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that compromise is necessary if a 19-member alliance is to move. Was it good that NATO acted, even if some undesirable things had to be said about ground troops? Or would it have been better not to act at all?

Sir John Stanley: I have entirely supported NATO's military action since the conflict began, but I take the Secretary of State's point. Movement by unanimity means movement according to the lowest common denominator. However, our position was similar to that which we faced in Iraq. It was open to a limited number of NATO countries to state their positions on ground forces and it was open to individual countries to make forward deployments of ground forces into Macedonia or, conceivably, Albania.

Mr. Bradshaw: I had intended to make the same point as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development, but as the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned a build-up of troops, does he agree that if we had substantially built up our forces while negotiating in good faith at Rambouillet, we would have given a great deal of propaganda ammunition to Milosevic, who could have accused us of negotiating in bad faith?

Sir John Stanley: It seems clear that Milosevic had wholly given up on Rambouillet by January or February and was making his barbarous plans for the comprehensive ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. On the suggestion that he may or may not have believed that we were acting in good faith, I shall again quote the Foreign Secretary's remarks to the Foreign Affairs Committee on 14 April, which I found profoundly disturbing. He said that
we had a very clear impression that President Milosevic did not believe that we would take military action and, because of that, was not willing to participate fully in the peace process.
That remark implies a serious failure among the NATO countries to demonstrate adequate deterrence to Milosevic.
On the air side, there was a similar error to that committed over ground troops. We made it clear at the outset that the target would be Serbian military capability. I do not believe that Milosevic was likely ever to be impressed by a NATO air threat couched in those terms alone. President Tito had an obsession with the survivability of his armed forces against the likelihood—as he saw it—of a Warsaw pact attack, and he had nearly 40 years in which to indulge that obsession.
The television-watching British public may have been somewhat surprised at the end of the campaign. Having been treated, night after night, to statements from NATO spokesmen to the effect that we were successfully degrading Serbian military capability in Kosovo,


they may have been shocked to see mile after mile of unscathed armoured vehicles pulling out of Kosovo. That does not come as any surprise to those of us who have watched over the years how the Yugoslav armed forces are deployed and how they protect themselves. Milosevic was never going to be hugely impressed by threats to his military capability.
The air war was turned by substantially widening the target list so that we ended up attacking the main sinews of Milosevic's grip on power. That certainly significantly undermined the confidence of the civilian population in his leadership. We turned our air attacks—rightly, as we had to bring about the end of the war as quickly as possible, if only to save the remaining Albanian Kosovans still alive in Kosovo—to economic and infrastructure targets, party headquarters, state-controlled media and so on. It is a sad reflection on how badly the deterrent card was played that we ended up bombing during the war a wider range of targets than we had ever given any intimation we would do during the peace, when we were trying to prevent the conflict from arising.
In conclusion, it is wholly legitimate and proper to ask whether this appalling humanitarian disaster in Kosovo could have been averted. It is a legitimate question that demands a full and serious answer. It should be answered by those independent of the Government.

Mr. Donald Anderson: The right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Sir J. Stanley) asked a number of wholly legitimate questions. I agree with him that one feature of the conflict was the pinpoint accuracy of the bombing. Yes, there were a dozen or so tragic accidents, but in the context of the 37,000 sorties it gives an indication of the sophistication of modern weaponry.
I am less happy about what the right hon. Gentleman said about the Rambouillet accords and his assertion that President Milosevic would have been readier to sign the June agreement than the Rambouillet accords. Surely the right hon. Gentleman recalls that the Rambouillet accords would have provided for a substantial number of Serb troops to remain in Kosovo. That was a major difference from the June agreement. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the possible independence of Kosovo. The Rambouillet accords included a carefully crafted form of words, put together by our British negotiators, which may have pointed towards, but certainly did not mention, a referendum. It was certainly not part of the negotiating aim of NATO to provide the basis for an independent Kosovo.
The right hon. Gentleman made a powerful point about war criminals. The United Nations Security Council resolution calls for the full co-operation of all parties, and that includes the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. However, he ignored the practical point of reaching into Yugoslavia and getting hold of the indicted war criminals. Short of invading Belgrade, it would be wholly impossible to implement. That said, the right hon. Gentleman, with whom I serve on the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, made an excellent contribution to the debate.
I was careful to note that there was no triumphalist tone in the presentation of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. Equally, the Prime Minister did not rejoice on the steps of No. 10. That is because we all recognise that we have reached only the first stage in the whole operation. Yes, there has been a remarkable military victory, but many challenges remain. Indeed,

Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war",
and perhaps there will be far greater challenges in establishing peace and stabilising the Balkans in future.
The Secretary of State for International Development made the important point that sometimes Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen in their criticisms ignored the key factor of alliance diplomacy. The right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling asked, as have others, why we did not say from the start that we were prepared to commit ground troops. He will know that in the October meetings only one country was prepared to commit ground troops and that was the United Kingdom. That is a fact of life of alliance diplomacy. The debate about ground troops in October last year was diverted by the Holbrooke deal with Milosevic. The deal was almost immediately repudiated by Milosevic as reflected in increased troop deployments in Kosovo.
At Rambouillet, Milosevic was again offered a good deal which would have retained the territorial integrity of his country. He was not serious about it, and then there was Operation Horseshoe. At the end of Rambouillet there was the promise from the Serb negotiator, Milutinovic, that he would go back and sell that deal to Serbia. Clearly, there was total deceit on the part of the Serb negotiators. We then turned to war and now we are back to diplomacy, which should have been the position from the start. But the House must understand the imperatives of alliance diplomacy.
I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman was objective enough to mention the key role played by the British Government and to say that the Prime Minister emerges with credit. The Prime Minister was principled and took a moral position from the outset. He stiffened the alliance at key times.
Russia blocked the possibility of military action in the United Nations Security Council. We have to try to understand that in terms of the problems of Russian history and the feeling in Russia that it has been sidelined and bypassed by the international community, for example in relation to what happened in Iraq and Cyprus. One lesson from the conflict must surely be that we must mend our relationship with Russia as speedily as possible.
The other area of great concern is the legal basis for the action. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) pointed out the international legal ambiguities. There were great problems in acting, but think of the problems in the area and beyond had there not been action. Think what encouragement it would have been to others inclined to consider ethnic cleansing. Nevertheless the action gives rise to a proper problem in respect of its international legal basis. We were citing the imminence of humanitarian catastrophe and, of course, that can be interpreted subjectively and can provide an unhappy precedent for intervention elsewhere in the world.
In the early 1990s Lord Hurd, when he was Foreign Secretary, made an interesting speech to the United Nations General Assembly stating that the UN should seek to forestall conflict, but should work through regional groups. His specific proposal in relation to Africa, for example, was that the west should provide military training and infrastructure for an African intervention force. That might be relevant now in the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Alas, nothing appears to have been done regarding that initiative of the


early-1990s. I hope that one lesson from that would be to consider ways not only of refining the international legal basis, but of using regional intervention by regional groupings when such conflicts arise.
In relation to the immediate task ahead, the first priority is the safe return of the refugees. Almost 1.4 million Kosovan Albanians are currently refugees—internally displaced, in camps or abroad. It is vital that they are allowed to return home in safety and that shelter should be found for them. I look forward to hearing what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development says about prefabricated housing, for example. One of the more distressing features is that, even as they departed, Serb forces were gratuitously destroying the houses of those people who had fled their country. I hope that something will be said about what we can do to ensure the provision of houses.
The international force must contain the desire for revenge. KFOR faces an enormous challenge in controlling the understandable desire for revenge on both sides. KFOR must be seen to be wholly even-handed. Yes, KLA men as well as Serbs must be arrested—as must whoever tries to step outside the peace agreement. Serbs are indeed now leaving Kosovo; we must try not to replace one form of ethnic cleansing by another. Surely, it is of the utmost importance to try to preserve a multi-ethnic entity in Kosovo itself. It would be a poor model for the region if we were to allow, or condone, atrocities that fuelled a further exodus of the Serb population of Kosovo—which was roughly 200,000.
Uncertainties remain, including those in respect of Russia. Many points have been made about Russia's cheeky and deceitful intervention at the airport. However, relations with Russia are part of the collateral, political damage that has resulted from the conflict. There are also problems within Russia. The NATO intervention has reinforced the stereotype of an aggressive NATO and encouraged nationalist forces in Russia. Much must be done to build bridges, as I have pointed out. The alliance surely underestimated Russia's determination to seek a role in the Balkans. Moscow is determined to be heard this time and really wants to be part of the solution. In the end game, it is vital that Russia plays a part. However, Russian demands for its own sector, which may lead to partition, must be resisted.
There are problems regarding the future legal status of Kosovo, and there are ambiguities in the UN Security Council resolution. We talk about the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia remaining, but what will be Serbia's authority—if any—within Kosovo? Travel documents have been mentioned. What form of travel documents will the Kosovan Albanians have when they leave? Clearly, they will be most reluctant to travel on Yugoslav documents. Will they have temporary UN travel documents? What consideration has been given to that matter? It is difficult to see how any real authority can be exercised over Kosovo by Serbia.
The right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing made some points about independence, self-government and the ambiguities relating to those matters in the June agreement. The interim Administration that has been agreed will be under the authority of the UN; that means that China and Russia will have an effective power of veto over the future of the province. However, the status

under international law is uncertain. One talks about territorial integrity, but, in effect, it will be UN trusteeship in all but the formal, legal position.
What about President Milosevic himself? He is an indicted war criminal, but we continue to deal with him as if nothing has changed. In so doing, there is a serious danger of undermining the war crimes tribunal and, ultimately, the international criminal tribunal and humanitarian international law generally. Obviously, we must remain alert and must be extremely cautious; we must not give Milosevic too many opportunities to exercise what the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling called the wriggle factor, or the ambiguities remaining after the agreements or in other places, such as Macedonia, Montenegro and Vojvodina where he may try to use his ability to make difficulties. The west will have only a partial victory as long as Milosevic remains in power.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development may pick up the point that I made earlier about the way in which the BBC World Service may be used constructively. Its output to the region has already been increased, but it could play an important role in the training of democratic journalists and media people, and in increasing its output to reach beyond the current Milosevic regime to the people of Yugoslavia.
In relation to the KLA, a point was made about the interesting difference between "disarmament" and "demilitarisation", presumably because, with some form of light arms, the KLA is still assumed to have a policing force in the new Kosovo. It is not clear how the KLA organisation will respond, although so far the indications are reasonably favourable. However, there is obviously a division within the KLA between those who want an independent Kosovo and others who support a Greater Albania, which would be a highly destabilising feature in the area as a whole. There is antipathy between Rugova loyalists and the KLA leadership, and clear evidence—although it has not been mentioned in this debate—of a degree of criminality among some of the KLA groupings.
In relation to the longer-term need to build a lasting peace, we want to bring the perpetrators of crimes to justice—a point made forcefully by the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling. The evidence of the mass graves already revealed is absolutely appalling. The perpetrators must not be allowed to get away with those atrocities. Although the leaders must be indicted, there should perhaps be a lesser form of punishment for the smaller fry. Various precedents could be considered—perhaps from South Africa, in the use of a truth and reconciliation commission. We need to find some way of allowing people to expiate the acts that they have committed.
In relation to the longer-term building of relevant structures in the area, economic frameworks are needed. I welcome the British Government's initiative in respect of free trade agreements between the western European countries and the countries of the region. In those economic structures, we need to be aware that several of the countries in the region are themselves innocent victims of the conflict. One thinks of the damage to the economy of not only the obvious countries, such as Macedonia and Albania, but of Bulgaria and Romania. That suggests that we need to have a stability pact—a stabilisation agreement for the Balkans as a whole. There must not be the paralysis of policy that existed after


1989, when Milosevic ended autonomy in Vojvodina and in Kosovo, but the international community allowed that to continue and did nothing.
There is a challenge facing us, and we must not allow that paralysis of policy that existed between 1989 and 1999 to return. We must build civic institutions and co-ordinate the efforts of all the relevant international organisations—NATO, the European Union, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the international financial institutions. There has to be a massive injection of resources into the region as a whole. It is often said that, when there is war, lavish resources are speedily found, but there is far greater reluctance to provide resources for peace building.
Another lesson that we must learn is that the Balkans are part of our common European home, yet there is a great deal of combustible material throughout the Balkans to fuel future conflict. The challenge now is to learn the lessons of what we have done and, as important, what we have failed to do over the past decade. We have to work with vision and commitment in terms of resources, both human and material, to build greater stability for the future.

Mr. Nicholas Soames: I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir J. Stanley) in his entirely justified tribute to the Prime Minister and his conduct during these extremely difficult months. The crisis in Kosovo must have placed an appalling burden on the right hon. Gentleman's shoulders, especially as it occurred at the same time as great difficulties in Northern Ireland.
I also congratulate the Secretary of State for International Development who, in my mind, has been transmogrified into a veritable Boadicea by her robust support for the refugees, the efforts she made to help them, and her support for the remarkable efforts of the British soldiers, who showed with astonishing skill that they can turn their hand to almost any task that is given to them. I am glad that the right hon. Lady gave them such great encouragement, and that she has been of such tremendous support to the armed forces in general.
I agree with so much of what was said by the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), who is Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, that I do not propose to take up his points; however, I shall endorse one or two of them in my remarks. I do not think that this is yet the moment for a fundamental and detailed lessons-learned debate, but such a debate will have to take place, so I am delighted to hear that the hon. Gentleman and his Committee are to conduct an exhaustive inquiry into the events in Kosovo, even though far more water will have to flow under the bridge before he commences that exercise. There is a need to examine not only the military but the political and diplomatic background to what transpired.
I want to raise two matters that have already been touched on by several speakers, because they are of continuing consequence to the unfolding of events. My starting premise is that I do not believe that the war should ever have happened. I have two criticisms to level—criticisms not necessarily of the Government, but of the way in which the whole NATO machine handled the crisis as it developed.
First, as the hon. Member for Swansea, East said, our failure, and the failure of the west, properly to engage with the Russians over the past few years has gravely damaged the stability of the world, and great dangers will flow from that. The abject failure to engage the Russians much earlier in the process led, among other things, to the inevitability of the ensuing conflict. That was a serious mistake, and I hope that any inquiry will deal at great length with the way in which the Russians were handled.
Secondly, I believe that it was wrong to undertake operations without the sanction of the United Nations. I have no doubt that our doing so has greatly undermined our position internationally and that it will make our diplomatic life much harder in future. The much-despised United Nations, despite its numerous failings, is the only comprehensive law-based body that exists for the purpose of settling disputes among its members, and however inconvenient the process may be—it is very inconvenient indeed—it was an arrogant subversion of the proper and correct conduct of all the laws relating to the settling of international disputes not to have gone every painful inch of the way to try to make the United Nations deal with its responsibilities. Part of the problem is that, foolishly, our American friends have treated the UN atrociously over the years. It is time for the great western powers to try to make the UN work again, but that will never happen if the rules of international law are flouted.
All that is now past and, although I congratulate the Government and the Prime Minister on having achieved a successful conclusion to phase 1, there remains a huge amount of work to do. First, we have to deal with the desperate problems facing the returning refugees. I shall not speak at length about reconstruction, because there are hon. Members present who know far more about it than I do, but I shall make some subsidiary points.
KFOR has to pacify and bring order out of total anarchy in the face of a tidal wave of poison surging through a broken and ruined country. That is not an easy or happy state of affairs. However, there is no one better equipped to play the role that they will be called upon to play than the British troops present on the ground. They are uniquely well-trained and well-equipped to undertake that dangerous and extremely difficult work. It is contemptible that, on the night on which we are debating Kosovo, there are no members of the press present, even though, on the ground in Kosovo, large numbers of British troops face imminent and real danger.
I pay warm and heartfelt tribute to General Mike Jackson, General Dannatt, Brigadier Freer of the 5th Airborne Brigade, Brigadier Rollo of the 4th Armoured Brigade and all the service men and women under their command for a stunning entry into Kosovo and its subsequent investment. It was a truly miraculous piece of logistical planning, and everyone—I repeat, everyone—deserves the greatest credit.
As a former Minister for the Armed Forces, I was not surprised, but I was thrilled, to see how all the regiments who spent a long time waiting on the border, knowing that they would eventually have to go into Kosovo, deployed extraordinary and heroic skills to build towns, cities, even empires for those poor refugees. Their wonderfully humane, generous and good-humoured treatment of the refugees makes them some of the finest ambassadors we could ever have.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Mailing described in moving language, and far better than I could, the astonishing achievements of the NATO pilots and air forces. I pay warm tribute to our own Harrier and Tornado crews, to the Chinook and Puma pilots, to the ground and support crews, and to all their NATO comrades for doing an excellent job.
However, we need to assess the role of air power in the campaign, especially in view of the astonishing achievements of the new weapons. It has been interesting to see how much of the Serb armour and how many of its men have been withdrawn: there must be an assessment to determine how so much equipment and so many troops survived. At least the air forces achieved one thing: the rate and, in later days, the breadth, of the bombing campaign in Kosovo pretty much ensured that the armour and heavy kit was never used and had to be kept bottled up. To that extent, the campaign worked, because anything that poked its nose out of doors in anything approaching reasonable conditions was given a very nasty smack in the puss indeed.
Counts of tanks and heavy armoured vehicles destroyed are always unreliable—as they were in the Gulf war. It will be instructive for our armed forces and for all those involved in the conflict to learn how the Serbs hid their heavy kit—hon. Members will know the arrangements that President Tito made over many years. Serb methods proved to be astonishingly effective, and I have no doubt that people will be sent from London to see what we can learn. We will want to gauge the effectiveness of their decoys and their camouflage and see where and how deeply their bunkers were sited. There are important lessons to be learned for future conflicts because, in truth, the Serbs appear to have done tiresomely well.

Mr. Dalyell: Is it not an awkward truth that the only time that losses were really inflicted on Serb armour was when the KLA guerrillas cut the road from Pec and the Serbs were forced to leave their positions?

Mr. Soames: This is a world of awkward truths. I have no notion—nor, I think, do the intelligence people—of the scale of Serb losses. If Serb or enemy armour of any sort had put in an appearance at a time and a place where NATO air power was able to deal with it, it would not have progressed far down the road. I suspect that the Serbs moved by night, were extremely canny and were prepared to sacrifice a few—but only a few—tanks when fighting the KLA. We will need to assess on what basis the intelligence people made their estimates and whether their desire to prove how well the campaign was going led to their telling us that more Serb armour had been damaged than was in fact the case. I have no doubt that we will learn lessons for the future.
I now come to the Russians. As I told the Foreign Secretary on Monday, I believe that Russian behaviour in the past few days has been utterly reprehensible. The Russians have proved yet again that, in military terms, they are totally unreliable and untrustworthy. We must not cave in to the Russian-Serbian collusion to establish a separate zone. That is what they are trying to do and, unless we are careful—because it would be convenient to end this frightful argument and pressure—we will find

that they have succeeded. I believe that, if we have much more trouble from the Russians, we should cut off their water and give them no more food and see how they like that.
This Yeltsin power play must not be allowed to stand. If Russia behaves well, it should be rewarded. However, its bad and irresponsible conduct under these circumstances—when it is meant to be part of a force that is attempting to bring peace and order to Kosovo—must not be free of cost. I hope that the Foreign Secretary will be extremely frank—a great deal more frank and less mealy-mouthed than he was in the House on Monday—with the Russians when he meets them this weekend, and will tell them that their behaviour is totally unacceptable.
The lessons of SFOR in Bosnia are instructive to the situation in Kosovo. The Dayton accord stopped the fighting, but with terrible hidden penalties. The Serbs and the Muslims are today no closer to living in harmony than they were at the beginning of the conflict. The various factions fight each other using every means short of war, including bureaucratic and administrative means. They argue about absolutely everything. The point scoring and incessant bloody-mindedness is almost impossible to deal with. We must establish a different structure for Kosovo.
We can try to bribe the communities in Kosovo to live together—the Secretary of State for International Development can do an awful lot of that through her Department. We can try to cajole them to live together but, in the end, they must accept a common rationale for the future. I believe that that is the greatest challenge ahead. We must develop a clear policy for Kosovo and its future as soon as possible and make sure that we have the will to enforce it with a very robust mandate.
At the same time as disarming the KLA—which must be done quickly by one means or another—I hope that, after all the rhetoric, we will all show a clear political will to go after the vile war criminals who have perpetrated acts of unspeakable savagery, cruelty and barbarism. We will watch carefully to see how the Government act in that regard. I know that the Government's heart is in the right place because the previous Government said the same thing. However, for all sorts of reasons not connected with the British Government, the necessary authority was not obtained in Bosnia and, time and again, the most terrible war criminals slipped through our fingers when we could have lifted them. We failed then because we did not have the political will. I hope that the Government will act extremely robustly in this case—although I fear that many of the horses will have bolted.
As to the reconstruction of Kosovo, I hope that, when Kosovo is made safe, the Secretary of State for International Development—who is very imaginative in such matters—will ensure that Great Britain does all sorts of good and original work on the ground. I would like to see British schools adopt schools in Kosovo. I would like to see parish and town councils take responsibility for small villages and try to raise money to ship the things that they will need. The Kosovar people will have nothing. Until people have seen what ethnic cleansing looks like on the ground, what is involved and the awfulness that has been wreaked on those small communities, they can have no idea of the sorts of problems with which the poor Kosovars must deal. I would like to see the building industry volunteer some


of its expertise and put its shoulder to the wheel to assist in constructing houses. Of course, there will be much work for the non-governmental organisations.
As the hon. Member for Swansea, East said, this crisis has highlighted the vulnerability of Macedonia and Albania. They will require—and they deserve—economic and other assistance. While press interest in Kosovo declines—in three weeks, there will not be a Kosovo story in the newspapers; the press will have forgotten all about it—the problems will become more severe, not easier, with each passing day. The dangers to the soldiers as they move further inland and off the highways will also increase but the reptiles will show no interest at all. We must ensure that we create a bold regional plan of reconstruction—and that will require a vision that has been terribly lacking in attempts to end previous conflicts in the Balkans.
I want to say a few words about NATO's strategy. First, the militarily indecisive, inept and morally compromising manner in which the beginning of the 80-day bombing campaign was conducted and the dilatory deployment of troops on the ground in Kosovo—I agreed with every word spoken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling—leaves a residue of long-term concerns that extend well beyond Kosovo. They will have to be seriously addressed.
Foremost among those concerns, as I have already said, is Russia's role in the crisis, the world's perception of the American way of war and all that it will mean for future foreign policy, and NATO's combat command procedures. The Kosovo crisis raises important issues regarding each of those concerns.
There are more immediate questions of great importance concerning the civilian administration and future policing arrangements. What should commanders on the ground do today if they are faced with anarchy? Whose law applies tonight? Who will decide questions of land ownership? Who will decide who owns the house at the end of the ruined street when people want to start rebuilding? All those and many more questions will have to be decided within the next few days if we are not to see increasing unrest, when tens of thousands of refugees will be pouring back—God bless them—to their homes.
This war has been conducted like no other military operation before. It has been fought uniquely, against the wisdom of all the pundits, by high-tech, airborne, stand-off weaponry, as if its sole underlying principle was that the life of even one American or NATO service man was not worth risking to save the lives of thousands of Kosovars. That new way of war sets a dubious, even dangerous, standard for the future. Success in warfare should not be determined by the avoidance of casualties. If the political and moral stakes are imperative enough to warrant the use of force, necessary force should be used to achieve the ends. This war was fought at no political risk or human cost. May it prove to have set an absolutely paralysing precedent for any future American President or British Prime Minister.
In the light of those factors and the awkwardly and unnecessarily long bombing campaign, we shall need to review and revise NATO's decision-making procedures. A clearer distinction will need to be made between the requirements for a basic, solid unanimity in NATO's commitment to action and the need for a military power or authority endowed with discretion to execute that

commitment by military means. I have to tell the Secretary of State for International Development that the Normandy landings could not have taken place under the command structure that was used in this campaign.
Nevertheless, the outcome of the conflict demonstrates that NATO is Europe's only effective security system and that the American-European connection remains absolutely essential to Europe's stability. Along with everyone who has bothered to think about this matter, I am deeply grateful to the Americans for coming to our aid and playing such a vital part in the operations. However imperfect it may have been, this was America's campaign. That makes it all the more important that the Kosovo experience be assessed in a constructively critical fashion. Many lessons must be learned not only about military activities, but about future European security and defence arrangements and the future command structure of NATO. All those are vital to our security not only for the next few years but for generations to come.
I want again to pay tribute to the soldiers of the 5th Airborne Brigade and the 4th Army Brigade and all the supporting arms of the Royal Air Force in the theatre. I pay particular tribute to my own old regiment, the King's Royal Hussars, who in the past few days have demonstrated great dash and daring, great pride in their skills, and discipline. Their actions on the ground have been seen on television. They combine independence of mind and judgment with the superb ability of the British soldier, whatever his rank, quickly to assess the odds and make instant decisions under the most severe pressure with enduring and inspirational courage.
The cuts that were made by my Government have, in the light of history, proved to be too deep. I have no doubt that in undertaking the strategic defence review, the Government's heart was in the right place, but although there is a broad stability of spending, the resources are fewer and the commitments remain the same. I look to the Government to honour their obligations to our armed forces and to this country's future security. If we are to develop a greater European capability, we must ensure that defence spending is increased.
With Northern Ireland possibly about to go pear-shaped—although I pray not—all sorts of problems to come in Kosovo, and the Army's commitments in Cyprus and Bosnia, the Navy's commitments and the commitments of the Air Force in Iraq and elsewhere, the armed forces cannot undertake those operations while being expected to find 3 per cent. efficiency savings per year. That is wholly unacceptable. Looking back on my own role in those discussions, I feel a terrible tightening in my tummy, and shame that we went too far.
This has been an important debate. I would not want the Secretary of State for International Development to think that any of my criticisms were directed solely at the Government. We have been operating in a coalition and there are lessons to be learned. I hope that the Prime Minister, who, as I said, has behaved admirably throughout, can drive the lessons-learned debate and make sure that we do not end up being such a poodle to the Americans in dealing with the Russians, the middle east and all the other flashpoints when we should have an independent European and British voice which balances that of the United States.

Mr. David Winnick: There were one or two points in the speech of the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) to which I shall refer in the course of my own.
I expect that if the war were continuing, we would be having a somewhat different debate today and a far greater attendance, particularly from those who opposed the military action from the beginning. Several hon. Members on both sides of the House would have been telling us how futile it was, that bombing would never secure an agreement with Belgrade, that it was a disaster from the outset and that we should give up. The scene is quite different today, and I am very pleased that the military action has been successful.
As I said in my intervention during the speech of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, it is appropriate that the debate is taking place on a day when the broadsheets, at least, are reporting on their front page the horrifying atrocities carried out against civilians—men, women and children—who were ethnic Albanians. Those crimes remind one in so many respects of what the Nazis did during their occupation.
There was never any doubt in my mind that it would have been totally wrong if we had allowed what was happening in Kosovo to continue, without military action being taken. When the Foreign Secretary reported to the House on 18 January on the murder of 45 ethnic Albanians, I said that I did not believe that it would be possible to secure any agreement with Milosevic without air strikes. I would therefore be the last person to have criticised the decision in late March, following the failure of the negotiations in France, to take appropriate military action.
Of course it would have been preferable if that had been done through the United Nations, as the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex said. I have supported the United Nations from the beginning, if only because of my age. I have always been a firm supporter of the United Nations, and I hope that that will continue. However, the hon. Gentleman, like his colleagues and some of mine, knows that it would not have been possible to secure UN agreement.
If we could have achieved that at the Security Council, of course we would have done so. It would have been preferable, but as it was not possible, the alternative was to take the action that we took under NATO, or to take no action at all. That was the choice. There was no question of our ignoring the United Nations and saying that we were not interested in that organisation.
I do not believe that, apart from one or two clauses, Belgrade would have accepted the agreement on offer earlier this year in France. It has been claimed by some of my colleagues that it was annexe B that was so objectionable to the Belgrade regime, and that without it, there could have been agreement. I do not believe anything of the kind. Indeed, the Foreign Secretary pointed out that the Serbians did not focus particularly on annexe B during the negotiations in March. The fact is that Milosevic would have found it difficult to sell what would have been seen by the ultra-nationalists as a complete sell-out on Kosovo and, for that reason, he decided not to sign. If he thought, as obviously he did, that he could hold on to Kosovo, he was determined to do so.
This time round, an agreement was accepted, with much relief among the people in Serbia. We know why, apart from the ultra-nationalists, they are so relieved that the bombing has come to an end and agreement has been possible. The Guardian today reports on the reaction of various people in Belgrade. One 47-year-old woman is quoted as saying:
What was the point? What did [the war] achieve? It was madness.
Then she dropped her voice and said:
It's a dangerous thing to say, but we should get rid of the president. He's been a disaster. If there was a protest tomorrow, I'd join it.
I have a great deal of respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon). I hope that it is mutual. As it so happens, we disagreed over the Gulf war. But my hon. Friend seemed to say that there had been crimes of atrocity on all sides. No one denies that crimes have been committed in former Yugoslavia by all sides. The difference, as the Foreign Secretary emphasised, is the brutality and the systematic outrages and atrocities that we read about in the newspapers, particularly today. It is not sufficient for my hon. Friend simply to say that she is against Milosevic. I have never doubted that for one moment. She is as much a democrat as I am. But without military action there would have been no way in which we could have achieved what we set out to achieve—the ending of Serbian rule in Kosovo—for all the reasons that I and others have outlined.
The critics have lost the argument over military action, although, perhaps not surprisingly among professional politicians, there is a reluctance to admit that. In our trade, we do not go out of our way to be self-critical, so I am not particularly surprised that those who have been proved wrong refuse to admit it.

Mr. Dalyell: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Winnick: Yes, because I was about to refer to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Dalyell: There might be an apology from me. It would probably be an interim apology at the end of the Parliament, and then after five years.

Mr. Winnick: Yes, I have heard about the five years on a previous occasion. There is one form of apology that my hon. Friend could make, and that is for his remarks on 13 April. In exchanges with the Prime Minister on Kosovo he mentioned a report on drugs by the German Federal Criminal Agency, backed by Scotland Yard, which, he said, points out
that the ethnic Albanian community is the most prominent group in Europe in the trafficking".—[Official Report, 13 April 1999; Vol. 329, c. 28.]
Is that not horrifying? If my hon. Friend had said that about blacks, Asians or Jews, there would have been outrage in the House. Should there not be similar outrage now? Here are a people who have been treated in the way I have just described, and that is how my hon. Friend considers it appropriate to refer to ethnic Albanians. That there are some among them, as among all people, who are criminals of one kind or another, is not in doubt, but my hon. Friend should not have phrased that in the way that he did. My hon. Friend talks about an apology, but an apology for those remarks would not come amiss.
Unlike the critics, I do not use the position of Serbian civilians as a means of knocking NATO. I have just explained my position, which my hon. Friends have known about from the beginning of the military action. But I do say—this is where I agree with other hon. Members—that it is imperative that everything be done, both in words and deeds, to reassure the civilian Serbs in Kosovo that they have no less right to be there, and to be there in peace and safety, than the ethnic Albanians. There can be no question of a Serb-free Kosovo. I do not want that and it would be totally opposed to what we set out to achieve.
Who cannot understand the bitterness felt by so many of the majority community in Kosovo? The ethnic Albanians perhaps feel that all Serbs are guilty and that the civilian Serbs in Kosovo, if they were not involved in such crimes, did not do much to stop them. Nevertheless, the fact remains that most Serbian civilians there were not involved in such crimes, and that should be recognised.
The KLA must be brought under control, as soon and as urgently as possible. That organisation needs to know quickly that it must not be in the business of harassing, or worse, civilian Serbs and that it cannot have a structure that inflicts on civilian Serbs the feeling that their safety is continually being undermined. That is why there is an important responsibility for the NATO command to make sure that that happens in practice and that the civilian Serbs are duly protected in every way possible.
I understand the argument that aid will not be forthcoming for Serbia as long as Milosevic runs that country. He is a total opportunist. Those of us who watched the film about the way in which Yugoslavia disintegrated saw how he climbed on the nationalist platform and used the Serb minority in Kosovo to consolidate his rule in Belgrade. We know and understand that, and he must be held responsible for so many of the crimes that were committed—not only in Kosovo, but in Bosnia.
Despite that, and although I have only contempt for Milosevic, I have to say that a number of people in the political class in Serbia are against Milosevic, but for the wrong reasons. I have spoken, perhaps twice in all, to some of the demonstrators in Whitehall, who have been there from the beginning of the bombing. I found that, almost without exception, they are against Milosevic, but from an ultra-nationalist point of view. Indeed, they said, "He's a communist."
Instead of concluding, like us, that democracy is the option, and should be the choice, in Yugoslavia, those people have taken a very different point of view. They represent the most ultra-nationalist element in Belgrade. Although we condemn Milosevic—the politician who, above all, is responsible for the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and for what happened in Bosnia and Kosovo—we should not forget other elements in Serbia who are by no means democrats and no friends of the west.

Mr. John Randall: The hon. Gentleman's experience with the demonstrators outside Downing street may be slightly unfortunate. I have spoken to them on lots of occasions and many people there are committed to democracy. Many people who were with me in supporting the independent radio station B92 are bitterly opposed to Milosevic—from a democratic, not an ultra-nationalist,

point of view. If the hon. Gentleman met an ultra-nationalist I am sorry, but I think that that is the exception rather than the rule.

Mr. Winnick: I hope so. On one occasion when I spoke to the demonstrators I showed them a newspaper report of the murder of a brave man in Serbia, the editor of a newspaper. They showed no interest whatever, but if there are among them people such as those mentioned by the hon. Gentleman that is very good. I know that many people in Serbia, including some in the political class, want a different Government—not a nationalist or a Milosevic Government, but a democratic Government. That was the very reason for putting that editor to death—a reason that is perfectly clear from the point of view of the Belgrade regime.
I therefore hope that, once the situation in Kosovo becomes more stable, we will see what can be done most effectively to bring Serbia back into the international community. There can hardly be any stability in the Balkans if Serbia is isolated and ordinary people who are not ultra-nationalists or Milosevic supporters have to live a hand-to-mouth existence in much deprivation and despair. Everything that can be done to support people who are opposed to crimes, adventurist policies and so forth should be done. I agree that it is difficult, and that it cannot be done immediately; I merely warn the House that an isolated Serbia could pose a great danger in the future.
It was said at various times in the war that what was happening was another Vietnam. I may be wrong, but I believe that I am the only Member of Parliament still in the House who, at the time, protested here about what was happening in Vietnam. It must have seemed to some people that I was doing so almost every day, and, if I may say so with due modesty, I do not believe that I was wrong. But I saw no possible comparison between Vietnam and Kosovo, and I believe that had we and our European partners turned away—had we simply said that these crimes were terrible but that we had decided to take no action, a course advocated by my hon. Friends the Members for Halifax and for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), and promoted during the statement made on 18 January—it would have been a terrible shame, and a stain on our country and its honour.
Of course I regret the bombing, and the civilian casualties that it caused. I am a human being; why should I not feel regret? Nevertheless, I believe that what NATO did—with our contribution and, of course, that of the United States—was absolutely justified. I believe that future generations of parliamentarians will view it as a necessary step, and I am glad that it has resulted in a successful conclusion. Whatever may be the future in Kosovo, we have demonstrated in practice that we will not allow ethnic cleansing, mass murder and rapes to continue without taking some form of action—if need be, the sort of military action that has been taken over the past few weeks.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. So far, Back-Bench speeches have lasted for an average of more than 20 minutes. If all who have sat through the debate hoping to speak are to have the chance do so, the average must be reduced to about 10 minutes.

Mr. Martin Bell: I promise to make the shortest speech of the debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Let me, from an independent viewpoint, congratulate the Government on a remarkable achievement, although no one would pretend that it is an unqualified achievement. The original objective of preventing a humanitarian massacre was tragically not met, and the results are being uncovered on the ground every day.
There is also a moral element. This was the most remarkable military campaign of its kind ever waged in that the attacking force, while inflicting great casualties and damage, suffered not a single casualty itself—not so much as an airman with a twisted ankle. We can be grateful for that, but we should also wonder whether, because the targeting was so general and sometimes unfocused, the casualties on the other side in the target area—often among innocent people—were much greater than they need have been.
We should also wonder whether there is validity in the new doctrine that decisive military results can be achieved by air power alone. I think not. I note that the Serb capitulation came at precisely the moment when, for the first time, ground forces were used in a realistic way. I am a former infantry man and ground force man myself, and I have insisted from the start that circumstances on the ground can be changed only by boots on the ground. We are fortunate indeed that two of the boots in Kosovo are occupied by one of the most remarkable British military men I know, General Sir Michael Jackson, who has had previous experience of this kind of operation. In 1995, he led part of the implementation force in Bosnia that imposed the Dayton settlement from Gornji Vakuf to Banja Luka. He did it brilliantly. He drove his people hard and won the affection as well as the respect of the soldiers who served him; that is not always the case with generals. Now they face a complex task in Kosovo, especially in dealing with the KLA.
I cannot help feeling that there may be an uncomfortable analogy with the situation in which British troops found themselves in 1969 and the early 1970s on the streets of Northern Ireland, where they were first greeted as saviours but soon found themselves to be targets. One of the young captains on the streets in those days was Michael Jackson. He will be aware of what the problems are.
Another problem involves the Serbs. The action is not against the Serbs; it is to protect the Serbs. They are a decent and honourable people, who have been terribly misled and have suffered. There is no monopoly of suffering. There is no monopoly of evil. Let it be noted that many of the Serbs who are streaming out in their tens of thousands are refugees for a second time, having first been driven out of Krajina. Reference was made to the destructive nationalism of the Serbs. In my time in the Balkans, which was considerable, I saw no more destructive nationalism than that of the Croats.
I note the historical perspective. Next week, we come to the end of the eighth year of the wars of the dissolution of Yugoslavia—eight years of misery and bloodshed. Sometimes I have asked myself whether the situation could have been averted. Could not the decisive action that we have seen in past months have been taken earlier? Of course it could.
The possible time for action was the autumn of 1990, when Dubrovnik was being shelled and Vukovar obliterated. I was in Vukovar on the day that it fell to the Serbs. It had been hit by 2 million shells and it looked like Stalingrad on the Danube during the second world war.
Three weeks later, I came back to London thinking that people would surely be taking account of that situation. I discovered that the commentators and the political circles were concerning themselves not with the great tragedy of the Croats and Serbs, but only with the Maastricht treaty, which was then being negotiated.
It is no secret now—it is well known—that the concessions that were given by the Germans to the British on the opt-out clauses of the treaty were matched by concessions by the British to the Germans on the unilateral recognition of Slovenia and Croatia. That was the fuse that lit two powder kegs: one was Bosnia, the other was Kosovo. We must now live with the consequences.
I agree with the remarks of the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames). Speaking as an ex-reptile, I especially agree with what he said about the reptiles. Kosovo will soon be gone from the news headlines.
We do not have an armed force of sufficient size to maintain through rotation the commitments that we have taken on. We will have to raise more infantry battalions and, more specifically, engineer regiments. We will have to pay for it somehow. The cost has not yet been calculated.
In those eight years, we have seen the consequences not only of action, but, much more lethal, of inaction. That inaction is now over—all credit to the Government for that. Let us all support them as we build a peace.

Mr. Robert N. Wareing: The Foreign Secretary said that our soldiers in Kosovo would be blind to the ethnic origin of the people whom they were there to protect. I can only hope that that will be the case. Knowing British soldiers and having served in the services, albeit in the Air Force, I am sure that our soldiers will do their utmost to protect Serbs as well as Albanians in Kosovo. I was delighted that General Sir Michael Jackson took the trouble to say to Serbs in Pristina that that was his objective; I am sure that he is sincere in that objective.
We have to look at the reality of the situation, and into the minds of many Serbs, in Serbia, have been living for the past eight years against a background of anti-Serb hysteria in the media, particularly in the west—in America, Britain and Germany—which has demonised every Serb, saying that all of them were evil. The hysteria has been deeply regrettable.
Serbia was bombed for 78 days, which has served only to harness support for Serb ultra-nationalism. In bombing Serbia, NATO has done its best to reward and to give succour to the nationalists. The Serbian people realise that they have been demonised by the west, and that the west has ignored the plight of refugees from Krajina, as it ignored the Serbs who suffered in Bosnia. People in Serbia see Krajina Serbs on their own doorsteps. As the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell) rightly said, many of the Krajina Serbs had been given homes in Kosovo, but are now refugees yet again.
The Foreign Secretary said that NATO had secured its objectives. Has it? I remember being told that NATO's objective was to protect the Albanians and to ensure that they were able to live again in Kosovo, and that bombing would ensure that they were protected. In a debate at the beginning of the war, I asked not whether bombing would bring Yugoslavia to its knees, but whether bombing would make the situation better or worse. Quite clearly, it has made the situation worse.
Before the bombing started, there were many internally displaced people in Kosovo, but only 4,000 had left as refugees for Albania or Macedonia. If I am wrong about that figure, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for International Development will correct me, but I am sure that it was about 4,000. Now, there are about 800,000 refugees. Although some of the refugees are returning to Kosovo—to a precarious situation—their situation is worse than it was before the bombing.
God knows how many people were massacred after 24 March, when the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe monitors were withdrawn. I am certain that the monitors' presence saved lives.

Mr. Bradshaw: Perhaps I can help my hon. Friend. The OECD itself and the United Nations estimate that 350,000 ethnic Albanians had been ethnically cleansed before a single NATO bomb fell.

Mr. Wareing: Yes, but all of those people did not go to Macedonia or Albania, as many of them settled in the forests and mountains of Kosovo—[Interruption.] Although my hon. Friend laughs at that, the fact is that, after 24 March, the situation became very much worse.
We are also being told that Milosevic has now accepted what he was being offered before 24 March. However, as many hon. Members have said, the Rambouillet accords essentially dictated NATO control of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Why, then, are NATO troops now able to enter Kosovo only from Macedonia or Albania? Annexe B is not in the 3 June agreement. Only the Russians have been allowed to go through Serbia to reach Kosovo. When I heard that the Russians were in Kosovo I thought that it was marvellous, because at least that will help to protect the Serb population. There would be less fear in Kosovo with the presence of Russian troops.
We have all heard about the difficulties that the German forces have had in Prizren. Perhaps Ministers can tell me the current situation there. The headlines in the Evening Standard two nights ago said that the German forces had been sidelined in Prizren and the KLA were in charge there. How can we tell the Serb population that we can protect them if they see that in one of the largest towns in Kosovo the NATO writ does not run?
I was also pleased that Russian troops had gone to Pristina, if only because the Russians had received no reward for the work that they put into the diplomatic efforts before the 3 June agreement. Without Russia, the Rambouillet accords would not have been changed and NATO would not have made the concessions that it undoubtedly made by no longer saying that it wants to occupy the whole of Yugoslavia. I am surprised that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary did not feel it necessary to express appreciation for the work of Mr. Chernomyrdin on behalf of us all in bringing about the 3 June agreement.
The hon. Member for Tatton stole the words from my mouth when he said that the position of the allied forces in Kosovo may well mirror what happened in Northern Ireland. The British troops were originally sent to Northern Ireland to protect the Catholic population against the B Specials, who were eventually disbanded, but they ended up fighting the IRA. I would not be at all surprised if, in the not-too-distant future, British soldiers and others in the NATO force found themselves fighting the KLA.
Another difference between Rambouillet and the 3 June agreement is that there is no provision in the new agreement for a referendum in three years. Do we think for a moment that the KLA—a terrorist organisation with a vision of a greater Albania—will give way on independence after the fighting that it has been involved in? Of course it will not. If we believe that we can easily disarm the KLA and that all the arms will be taken over by NATO, we are living in a fool's paradise.
If we want to promote the Balkan region and we are concerned about the Romanians, the Bulgarians, the Hungarians and the Macedonians, we have to look at the situation in Serbia. The depleted uranium bombs that we dropped—a war crime in itself—are polluting the Danube and the earth. That does not stop at the frontier of Serbia; it will affect its trading partners and neighbours in the region.
If we do not give assistance to Serbia, who will benefit? I warned the House, eight years ago in 1991, of the danger of Seselj. The Foreign Secretary mentioned a democratic Serbia. That will take time. However, I have visited the former Yugoslavia more than 40 times, including about a dozen times during the conflicts of the past eight years, and I can confirm that it is far easier to talk to people on the streets or in the tavernas and cafes of Belgrade or any of the other cities in that part of the world than it was in Ceaucescu's Romania. I remember that people in Romania would talk to me only in whispers in doorways. I suggest that Belgrade is also much freer than Zagreb.
My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) has done a wonderful job in opposing the insanity that has been inflicted on Europe in past months. She referred to many of the problems and I believe that, unless we give assistance to the Serbs in Yugoslavia, if they get rid of Milosevic they will get someone worse instead—they will get Seselj. They will not get a democrat overnight. If the west shows that it is interested in the ordinary people and their partners in the area, there is a greater chance of getting them to consider their political system and reaching a more desirable end to their political problem.
It is sad that our country has played its part in helping NATO to usurp the United Nations. We know that the US is undoubtedly the great power behind NATO, which will not do anything without the support of the Americans. If anyone is blind to ethnic origins, it is Americans, at least as far as the Kurds in Turkey are concerned. Turkey is one of the so-called 19 democracies. Is Turkey really a democracy? Of course it is not, and that is why we are placing a barrier in the way of its entrance into the European Union.
Are the Americans really interested in democracy and human rights, when they supply arms to Indonesia even after all the horror in East Timor? Can we say that the Americans are interested in democracy, when the history of American policy reveals the crushing of a democratic


regime in Guatemala in 1954? In 1973, the US gave aid to crush the democratic regime in Chile. Many other instances of its imperialism could be cited.

Mr. Winnick: I mentioned in my speech what I felt about US involvement in Vietnam and my total condemnation of its actions in Chile in 1973 and Guatemala in 1954. However, the fact that the US was wrong on several occasions does not mean that it cannot be right on others. Were we not pleased to have its support in the first and second world wars, in particular? Despite the blemishes on the US record at home and in Latin America, one must take every situation on its merits.

Mr. Wareing: I was very pleased when the Americans were brought into the war in December 1941 after the bombing of Pearl harbour. I was also delighted—because we were alone—that on 22 June 1941 we got the support of the Soviet Union, despite the regime there.
We have come to the end of the cold war, or at least we thought so. Many of us, and perhaps even my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick)—I am careful to get the name of his constituency right, because he was understandably agitated when someone got it wrong before—used to say that we hoped that one day the cold war would end and east and west would come together, with an end to the Warsaw pact and NATO.
The Warsaw pact has gone and I still hope for the end of NATO because I believe that the security of Europe, and indeed the world, requires harmony with Russia, which is still a great country. True, it has been disastrously ruined by accepting Thatcherite economics, but it has huge potential. It is still a nuclear power and a member of the United Nations Security Council, so it cannot be ignored. We should try not only to end the disastrous situation caused in part by NATO's actions but to find a new European security system that embraces Russia. In that way, we can ensure that there will be no more Kosovos, because we will be together.
I congratulate the new shadow Foreign Secretary on his appointment, but I was astonished when he spent about a third of his speech attacking Russia. I can understand him attacking Milosevic or Tudjman. I wish that Ministers had attacked Tudjman as much as they attacked Milosevic. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax said, Tudjman is equally a war criminal. I have met them both and I know what they are like. It is a toss-up between them. Tudjman is a forbidding character from start to finish, but that does not mean that Milosevic is a great chap.
We should choose our friends carefully. We chose the undemocratic regime in Turkey and shook hands with the Croatian regime. Croatia helped NATO, allowing flights over its territory and stopping oil supplies to Serbia. We need an even-handed approach in the future, which we have not had for some time.

Mr. Bowen Wells: The House knows that I opposed the bombing of Kosovo and Belgrade. I did so because I did not think that it would achieve the objective that we set for ourselves: to avoid an horrific humanitarian disaster that was being planned

by Milosevic. Unfortunately, that disaster has taken place in spades and practically all the people for whom we went to war are displaced or refugees. Including those inside Kosovo, that adds up to more than 1 million people, and the total Albanian population of Kosovo is about 1.5 million.

Dr. Jenny Tonge: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Wells: Not just at the moment, please, particularly since we have very little time—and I know the hon. Lady wants to speak.
None the less, it would be churlish not to say that the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State for Defence and the Secretary of State for International Development have been steadfast in pushing through their policy. They have troops going into Kosovo, the bombing has stopped and we are beginning to get the refugees back to their homes. I admire and applaud that achievement but, like many hon. Members, I do not believe that the action was necessary in the first place.
I think that a consensus has begun to develop in this debate. The hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) has been courageous in persisting with the points that she has made. Much of what she had to say was acknowledged by the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, who agreed that the undermining of the international rule of law enshrined in article 2(4) of the United Nations charter is unforgivable and will lead to unforeseen turbulence in the rest of the world.
That agreement was shared by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir J. Stanley). So a consensus is emerging that serious damage has been done to organisations with a long history that we have supported through thick and thin. It is not good enough to say, as the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) did, that we shall simply ignore and override such organisations when we do not get what we want.
The result of the action is that Russia has been left on the outside. Russia was the key to achieving any kind of agreement with Serbia. There was an idea that the bombing would get rid of Milosevic, but we have not succeeded in that. We still have to negotiate with him, and we have only reinforced his support in Belgrade and Serbia. If we had not bombed but had encouraged those who were against his policies in Serbia, we might have got rid of him, with the result that we would now be negotiating with a more pliable person with whom we could do business. That is not a possibility with Milosevic.
So I make no apology for not supporting the war. The diplomacy employed by the international community in relation to the break-up of Yugoslavia has been a disaster. The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell) said that a deal was done with the former Chancellor Kohl to secure the British opt-outs in the Maastricht treaty talks by letting Germany recognise Croatia and Slovenia. If true, that was one of the most disastrous and dishonourable international agreements ever made. That is why we must call an international conference on how we deal with unacceptable genocidal activities in countries. We must


find a peaceful way to allow countries to disaggregate without fighting, ethnic cleansing or the other horrors that we have seen.
If we have the vision, we must try and restore a sustainable international law respected and obeyed by all countries, however inconvenient it may be. Such a rule of law might be implemented by the United Nations Assembly, or NATO might revert to a defensive role. That is what we must try to rebuild.
However, I believe that Russia's actions, taken to re-establish its position in the world order, are justified. I do not support—and neither do the Government or the Opposition—the idea of a separate Russian zone, as it would be heavily influenced by Serb interests. Yet we ignore Russia at our peril. We would be stupid to do so: we must enfold, embrace and help that country—and get help from it—in these difficult situations. We made a serious mistake by ignoring the Russian veto at the United Nations and Russian counsel at Rambouillet.
How should we deal with the refugees? The Secretary of State for International Development has been good enough to place in the Library details of what she has done, some of which I have read. Those details will form part of a research paper that the Library is producing. Much aid will be given to international organisations in Europe, to UNICEF and to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The Secretary of State has accepted that the UNHCR is an imperfect instrument, and I welcome the fact that her Department has given not money but services and supplies when the UNHCR has required them on the ground.
I retain serious misgivings about the UNHCR's leadership and determination to manage the situation. When refugees flood home in an uncontrolled way, we continually hear cries that there is no power to stop them. However, the UNHCR should have powers to intervene, explain, dissuade and cajole the refugees into returning in an orderly fashion that would allow them to begin to rebuild their lives and their homes. The refugees will return to homes without water or electricity. Sometimes, there will be no road; certainly, there will be no fuel. Their fields will not have been cultivated and they will have no money or means by which to see themselves through the 12 months before the next harvest or with which to rebuild their homes.
The European Community Humanitarian Office has suggested to the UNHCR a framework within which we can all work. Much more must be done, however. The Secretary of State should explain how the operation will be handled. How will we provide shelter or enable people to build homes? One research paper says that roughly 50 per cent. of the houses in Kosovo have been damaged or destroyed. The UNHCR will provide basic shelter materials for approximately 35,000 housing units. Basic shelter kits will include plastic sheeting, roofing and windows, some timber, a toolkit and possibly some window and door frames.
I am not certain that that will be enough. We cannot be dealing with only 35,000 houses, the number must be a great deal higher. It also seems to me that one would not be able to rebuild a housing unit with that basic equipment. We require a much more imaginative approach. Pre-fabricated buildings may be the quickest means by which to re-establish refugees in decent housing that will see them through the winter. The situation is

urgent as the Balkan winter in Kosovo is severe. Homes must be rebuilt between now and October, or refugees will be in the open and young children and older people will die.
We need an imaginative approach, prosecuted with the vigour and determination that the Secretary of State exhibits in her approach to many problems of international development. We must provide food, shelter and clothes. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) referred to links with British communities, and one feature of recent events has been the huge response of the British public. We should encourage that, and we should provide an organisation within the Department to make links between our schools, local and national non-governmental organisations and organisations in Kosovo. That would get people communicating with each other and working together to re-establish villages and towns as quickly as possible.
I understand that the Secretary of State has established a new Balkan supremo in her Department—a post aimed at co-ordinating the efforts of her Department and, presumably, liaising with the international organisations to which much of our money is going, namely UNICEF, the UNHCR and the European Community. How does she foresee that working? We are heavily involved and we must show in the civilian, refugee and humanitarian effort the same imagination, co-ordination and determination as was shown in the military campaign in order to return this as quickly as possible to a civilised, organised society going in the direction that the people want to take.
If we can do that, it could provide the basis for good will to spread in the Balkans and for the Balkan peoples to see that we are interested in their future and want them to live a decent life without civil conflict. It could begin to build a structure and a Balkan settlement of which we can all be proud and under which the people of the Balkans can live at last, after many centuries, in peace and constructive communal living. That would be a wonderful achievement. It is within our grasp, despite the past difficulties.

Mr. Bill Rammell: I am pleased to take part in the debate. The conflict in which this country and NATO took part was absolutely justified. It was crucial that we prevailed.
Anyone who still has doubts about the justice of that action should listen to some of the stories that are coming out of Kosovo day by day from independent reporters. We knew that the situation was appalling from the horrific stories of ethnic cleansing, with old men, women and children being lined up and shot. A description in The Guardian today moved me greatly. A man, describing what had happened, said:
You can't imagine the sound of the scream when a child dies … Ismet, who was three, was crying, 'Mummy I want water.' And they shot him in the face.
Everybody in this Chamber, particularly parents, cannot fail to be moved by such a description. I do not cite that atrocity for the sake of it; I ask those who have opposed the conflict from the beginning, used phrases such as "truth is the first casualty of war" and dismissed these tales as the usual pack of NATO lies, to reflect on these realistic accounts.
I am relieved that the Government took the stance that they did over Kosovo and that we rejected the isolationist notion that it is justifiable to take military action only when British lives, security or financial interests are at stake. The decision was not an easy one. Clearly, there were problems and reservations. However, the Government, rightly, set out a clear, moral case for action. They took a lead and stuck to it with determination.
There were political risks. It is conceivable that if we had not achieved our objectives, the Government's reputation could have been tarnished beyond measure. It is worth highlighting that point because some people criticise the Government for not having a moral basis to their values. Despite the political risks, the Prime Minister and the Government took the view that the moral principles at stake outweighed those risks. I am pleased that we took that stance.
I shall address briefly some of the points made by my hon. Friends. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) is not in the Chamber. I respect her and have a great deal of time for her as a politician, although I disagree with her in this case. She cited numerous examples of conflicts throughout the world in which atrocities had occurred. She implied that, because we did not act on those occasions, we should not have acted in Kosovo. The logic of that position is that one would never act anywhere. I wholly reject the notion that if one cannot act everywhere, one should never act anywhere. That is a counsel of despair and would allow the world to develop according to its worst excesses.
My hon. Friend also referred to the demonising of Serbs. I have absolutely no disagreement with innocent Serbs, who are human beings like everyone in the Chamber. However, the idea, proposed by my hon. Friend, that there is moral equivalence between the actions of the KLA and those of the Serbian regime under Milosevic is not sustainable when we consider the facts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) made a number of points. I am choosing my words carefully when I say that I begin to get very angry indeed when I hear someone referring to the 350,000 people who were expelled from their homes, and are living in the forests and hills, as settled. To attempt to minimise the scale of the atrocity that took place before even the first NATO bomb had been dropped is to attempt to defend the indefensible.
It is crucial that we learn lessons from the conflict. The first is that we need to pursue vigorously the concept of European defence co-operation. I say that not because I want to undermine NATO—any form of European defence co-operation would be within NATO—nor because I am arguing for a European army. We shall never give up the right of sovereign nation states to determine whether they should take part in military conflict. However, it is certainly arguable that, in circumstances such as those that have existed in the former Yugoslavia for much of this decade, without the over-dependence on the financial resources and hardware of the United States, European nations would rightly have acted sooner if they had had the capability, and would perhaps have been able to prevent some of the atrocities. It is worth exploring whether we should develop a defence capability that would enable us to do that.
The second lesson is that we need to rethink the role of the United Nations. I believe in the UN and that it is a force for good and for peace. However, the conflict has shown up the shortcomings of the UN and the need for reform. The UN was born in a different era, and in a different world. Its charter stresses the territorial integrity and political independence of the nation state. However, during the conflict, Kofi Annan made it clear that the right to national sovereignty does not confer an absolute right for a Government—whether or not they are democratic—to do what they will to their people within the confines of the nation state. Since the inception of the UN, the concept of taking military action for humanitarian purposes has developed throughout the world and has gained widespread international repute. However, the UN charter does not address either of those developments in international thinking.
We need to rethink the UN's decision-making structure. The criticism that there was no explicit authorisation for military action related to the decision-making structure of the UN Security Council, in which one permanent member of the council has an absolute right of veto. Do we really want to preserve the kind of structure whereby, whatever the scale of humanitarian atrocity and however overwhelming the agreement among every other country in the UN, one country, which happens to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council, should be able to block that action? At the least, we need to challenge that notion.
I realise that time is short and that other hon. Members want to speak. In conclusion, I point out that I am not someone, either as a politician or as an individual, who has a liking for war. War is brutal: it is ugly and, in many ways, it demeans humanity. However, I have never been a pacifist. I know that, in certain circumstances, it is justifiable to take military action to tackle a greater evil. This conflict was one of the occasions on which we were justified in taking such action.
That action received widespread support because people understood the issues that were at stake and that there was no realistic alternative if the atrocities taking place in Kosovo were to be stopped. I am pleased that the Government adopted the stance that they did; I am pleased that we have prevailed; and I am pleased to have been able to support the action.

6 pm

Mr. John Randall: It is a privilege to speak in this debate which, despite the rather low attendance, has been graced by some eloquent speeches. As a new Member of Parliament, it has been a privilege to listen.
Some events in world history take us by surprise, but some should not. The Kosovo problem did not creep up to take us by surprise; it has been staring at us for decades. The bitter enmity and racial tension between Serbs and ethnic Albanians have often risen to the surface. Hon. Members who have now visited the region will have seen it only in the context of horrendous stories and terrible events, but I am lucky to have known Kosovo in happier times. I also remember being threatened by ethnic Albanians in Pristina more than 20 years ago, because I was speaking Serbo-Croat. I quickly had to return to speaking English, albeit briefly, to establish my identity. That said, many on both sides of the ethnic divide have lived amicably side by side over the centuries, and even today many thousands of ethnic Albanians live in Serbia, including Belgrade.
Today's is the first debate that has taken place since the end of the bombing campaign, and many of the issues that I wanted to raise have already been touched on. However, I do want to say that it has not been easy for those of us who opposed the NATO bombing: we have struggled with our innate patriotism and sense of loyalty to our armed forces and we have been labelled traitors or even Nazi sympathisers.
I am confident that no one in the House supports the ruthless regime of Milosevic. Some of us have been trying in recent years to give help to those who oppose him and his regime and to bring democracy to Yugoslavia. Why, because we dared to speak out—an exercise of our democratic rights which is, I concede, largely denied in Milosevic's Yugoslavia—should we have been so labelled?
I was not a Member of Parliament at the time, but I remember when principled Front Benchers of the then Opposition resigned—some were even sacked—because they opposed or questioned the bombing of Iraq during the Gulf war, even though that war arose from the invasion of one sovereign country by another. However, I do not want to make party-political points, because support for and opposition to the Kosovo conflict has brought together some strange alliances, which has been very revealing.
One aspect of the conflict that worries me a great deal is the use of weapons containing depleted uranium. We have been assured in parliamentary answers that Britain has not deployed such weapons, but it would appear that some of our allies have done so. The use of such weapons should be the subject of a full and open debate, and I hope that the Government will address that issue in due course.
I am also greatly alarmed by the environmental damage caused throughout the region, such as the poisoning of rivers of international status. We have learned of great damage done to the unique habitat of the Danube delta, where both people and wildlife are now suffering. The refugees returning to Kosovo will find not only a country materially destroyed, but an environmental wasteland. Of course, Serbia itself has identical problems.
I turn to the present. We are now in an extremely dangerous position. I pay tribute to all the peacekeeping forces in the area, especially the British armed forces. I have no doubt that they will demonstrate the highest standards of professionalism, and I am utterly confident that they will be as even-handed in their duties as it is possible for them to be.
However, to the Serbs in Kosovo, NATO will be seen as an occupying force. That is why the Russians' input is so utterly important and why I believe—we have heard this repeatedly this afternoon—that they should have been involved earlier.
Unfortunately, the Serb population is leaving Kosovo in droves. The pendulum has swung and the humanitarian disaster is only getting worse. We have heard in the debate that the people who fled from Krajina at the point of a gun are on the move again. They are every bit as deserving of our sympathy and humanitarian aid as the poor wretched people who were driven from their homes in Kosovo to Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, or wherever. We must show equality in our pity and in our actions.
Neighbouring countries must be given as much help as possible because they have paid a great price. Hungary estimated in May that it had lost revenues amounting to

at least $200 million, and its tourist industry is a wreck. Macedonia has also borne much of the burden of the side effects of this action. Its export trade has all but collapsed, as has that of Albania. Principally, we must not forget Montenegro, the country to which, in a strange twist, we were sending aid at the same time as we were bombing it. Real aid to those countries must be given the highest priority.
I disagree with the Government's notion that we cannot help Serbia until Milosevic leaves power—although I understand the sentiment. I think that we must use both the carrot and the stick—and I suggest that the stick has been used against the Serbian people with incredible ferocity. If we are earnest in our desire to bring full democracy to Yugoslavia, we must show the Serbian people more than merely a glimpse of the future: we must give them what the vast majority crave. There has been—and still is—a great deal of opposition to the current regime, but we must allow the Yugoslav people to make their own decisions. We must not dictate to them, but we can show them the choices and the possibilities available.
At this point, I thank the British Yugoslavs. Even in demonstrations, they behaved peacefully in the face of a demonisation that reached great heights. For a few weeks, every crime committed in this country was pinned on the Serbian people.
Before concluding, I draw the attention of the House to another issue that deserves our immediate focus: the perilous state of and threats to the priceless cultural sites throughout the region. The world-famous Gracanica monastery has been affected by nearby bombs, and I believe its portal in particular has sustained a great deal of damage. Thirteen churches in the Veliko Hoce district have been destroyed and their priests have fled. The monastery at Decani—where, incidentally, monks sheltered Albanian Kosovars throughout the conflict—is also at risk. The list is long. Although most of the damage was caused by stray NATO bombs, retreating Serbs have set fire to the famous Islamic library adjacent to the main mosque in Prizren, and reprisals by the KLA against cultural sites remain a great threat. Important sites in Serbia, such as the fortress at Petrovaradin on the Danube, have also been badly damaged.
I have had my doubts about whether it was right to oppose the NATO action. Every day, as we read or see pictures of more brutality and horrors, those doubts remain. The thought "What else could we have done?" echoes around my head. The questions that I leave with hon. Members today are whether, as a result of this action, the region is more stable; whether we have averted the humanitarian disaster; whether we stopped the killings as quickly as we could; and whether the world is a safer place. I fear that, despite everything, some countries will start to build up their military forces again—indeed, I think this conflict shows that our armed forces are at a perilously low level.
These last months have been some of the most difficult, in a political sense, that I have known. I have realised for the first time that propaganda comes from both sides in a war, not just the enemy. I winced at the jingoism of the press and the horror of military action, and I do not think that I will ever again be able to regard such issues in black and white, as I once did. I feel, as in the conversion of St. Paul, that the scales have fallen from my eyes.
I am pleased that my worst fears have not been realised, and I admit that I am happy that I was wrong. I have also realised the great dilemmas and responsibilities that fall on those who govern this country, and I should like to thank them for their sincere efforts and for bearing those terrible responsibilities so well. I hope that those efforts will be rewarded with the lasting peace that we all desire.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: My own speech is necessarily truncated, but I believe that the debate has been better for the fact that Back Benchers have not been limited to 10-minute speeches.
I had the good fortune to be called to speak last week, on 10 June, when, at column 843 of the Official Report, I asked several questions to which I am still awaiting answers. On 30 June, I shall ask question No. 3 to the Prime Minister. I shall ask simply who is tasked with disarming the Kosovo Liberation Army.
On that subject, I refer to an article by Chris Stephen, reporting from Pristina, for The Scotsman this morning. He writes:
The rebel Kosovo Liberation Army said yesterday that it would not disarm as required by the United Nations until Russian troops pulled back from the province.
The KLA spokesman, Pleurat Sejdiu, said in London that the rebel army, with an estimated 20,000 soldiers, might even go to war with Russian troops if they established a separate zone in Kosovo, which he said would amount to a partitioning of the Yugoslav province.
'Nobody will start to disarm until the Russians go. If they make their own zone it may be war' he said.
At the United Nations, Russia's ambassador said that the Security Council needed to deal with the refusal of the KLA to give up its weapons. I ask the Government to respond to that point.
Finally—I promise to be brief—my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) referred to my remarks about drugs. I shall simply quote from the New Statesman of 9 April, which I was quoting when I made those remarks. It said that
a recent intelligence report issued by the German Federal Criminal Agency came to the conclusion that 'ethnic Albanians are now the most prominent group in the distribution of heroin in western Europe'".
I used that quotation in my remarks. My question might have been better framed if it had asked specifically about the KLA. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North that I was quoting accurately from an article which I shall give him.

Dr. Jenny Tonge: I have listened for a long time to much self-congratulation—not triumphalism—and much analysis of politics and military tactics. It is a trifle early to engage in such analysis of what happened and why.
I supported the action throughout, and I never doubted that we were doing the right thing. Instead of looking back, at the fag-end of the debate, I shall deal briefly with the present problems. As the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) said hours ago—she is no longer in her place—there is an awful mess that needs cleaning up.
Until the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) spoke, I thought that no one would mention what is to be done about the refugees and the people who are returning to live in Kosovo. The debate has been very one-sided. The hon. Gentleman made several points, particularly about the UNHCR and the organisation of non-governmental organisations to prevent them from becoming confused, as happened in Rwanda. I shall not repeat those points.
I have a shopping list for the Secretary of State. First, the children in Kosovo, whether they are Serb or Kosovar children, are dreadfully shocked and traumatised. They have experienced things that no child should ever expect to experience. They have seen fathers killed, and mothers raped and beaten before their eyes. I saw an item on the BBC News website about a paramilitary policeman who had killed 54 people in one day. That sort of thing is being witnessed by children.
The children have lost their families. They need medical, social and, above all, psychiatric help because they are the future of their country. Without the right help now, those events could be repeated in their generation. It is terribly urgent for them to get the necessary help, and I hope that the Secretary of State will put their needs foremost.
The Secretary of State mentioned yesterday that hospitals were practically non-existent in Kosovo. When I visited Tirana in Albania, which has not been bombed, I described the facilities as pre-Florence Nightingale. That country had not had the effects of war to deal with. It was trying to cope with the refugees and its own people, and it had nothing. Medical facilities must be at the top of the list of the aid to be sent out for returning refugees.
I shall mention yet again—probably for the third time in the House—the needs of the host families in Albania and Macedonia. If they were given more financial and food aid, they might be able to keep many refugees in their families and homes for a long time yet, so encouraging the refugees to stay where it is safe and not to try to return to Kosovo too early.
The documentation of refugees has been dealt with, so I shall not go over it again.
Land mines will cause an enormous amount of injury and death in the coming weeks. The matter has not been discussed much in the House. This could be an opportunity to relaunch the Ottawa treaty process. Is there nothing that we can do to revitalise the campaign against land mines? We need a global land mines task force under the UN. Could not Kosovo and Bosnia be the place to restart the campaign? Will the Serb nation help us do that?
However optimistic we are, a guerrilla war is sure to be fought in Kosovo for some time. Has anyone addressed the question of where the supply of small arms and armaments will come from? The arms brokers in this country must be rubbing their hands in glee as they contemplate yet another market for their goods. Has any member of the Government considered the problem? What proposals have been advanced to prevent the activities of arms brokers in Britain and elsewhere?
Lastly—I know that the Secretary of State expects me to say this, so I will say it—I should again like reassurance from her that the medium and long-term costs of aid and the reconstruction of the Balkan states will come from the Treasury and not from the Department for International Development. It was she who said some


weeks ago that we should not expect the poorest people of the world to pay for the reconstruction of the Balkans. It is our responsibility.

Mr. Gary Streeter: On Saturday morning I got up early and watched Sky News to see the entry of British troops into Kosovo. I continued to watch television throughout Saturday morning. Even when my family, with whom I usually long to spend time, rose much later than I had, and even when the cricket came on on the other side, I continued to watch British troops going into Kosovo.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: Something serious.

Mr. Streeter: Yes, for me to miss watching cricket is a serious matter. My wife could not understand why I was watching for so many hours. Sky News was terrific, but of course it repeated the same thing over and over again. I asked myself why I was so gripped by what I was watching. I think it was for two reasons. First, I felt immense pride in the skill and ability of our troops to do this kind of work—the peacekeeping and spearhead rapid reaction soldiering in which they have been trained for so many years. When last year I went with the former shadow Foreign Secretary to meet our troops who were engaged in peacekeeping in Bosnia, again I was impressed by their professionalism, sensitivity, training and ability to keep the peace as well as fight a war. The pride that I have in our troops welled up within me on Saturday.
Secondly, I had just returned from a five-day visit to Albania visiting refugees in Tirana, and Kukes on the northern border. I went there to see the condition in which the refugees were living. After a poor start, the aid agencies did a terrific job in caring for people there. Most were medically well, with enough food and water, and attempts were being made by UNICEF and others to care for the children and to provide some kind of schooling. That was interesting.
I also heard the stories of people just like us, and of the trauma that they have experienced. I was able to speak with them about friends, neighbours and relatives who had been killed. I talked with some young people about what they have gone through. I met one girl called Susanna, whom I will never forget. Speaking in good English, she told me how one day the Serbs arrived in her village, knocked down her family's front door and gave them 10 minutes to get out. They got out, but some of their friends and neighbours did not make it.
As I watched Sky News on Saturday I knew the joy that would be welling up in the hearts of the refugees in Albania. This was the day for which they had been waiting. This was the day that meant that they would soon be going home—the very thing for which they had hoped and prayed all those weeks and months. It was a moving experience.
Taking part in today's debate, as my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) said, has been a privilege. We have heard many different points of view, but all of us are now committed to ensuring that we win and lead the peace.
I join those who have been paying tribute to the Government and to NATO on the outcome of all that has taken place. The Prime Minister has talked in the past of

a moral crusade. The conservative in me wants to leap up and be more pragmatic than that—and to say that that kind of language does not fit the situation. But when it comes down to it, we are talking about a battle of imperfect good against outrageous evil. I am proud to have been part of a country that has played its part in bringing Milosevic to heel in Kosovo. We were right to do that and we will be right to see it all the way through.
This has been a debate of the highest quality. It was opened by the Foreign Secretary and by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples), who made some extremely valuable points in his maiden outing, asking questions which I know the Secretary of State for International Development will be keen to answer. Incidentally, I intend to give the right hon. Lady plenty of time to respond to the debate.
We were pleased to hear from the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, who said that his Committee would look into the conflict and see what lessons could be learned from it, and that will be a valuable exercise.
It was interesting to hear from the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), who brings experience to these debates. He spoke movingly of the true horror of the war and had many interesting thoughts about how we must now win the peace and restore the property and legal rights of the Kosovar Albanians.
The hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) told us that she had to leave the debate early. I do not agree with her point of view, but I respect her right to bring it to the debate. It would not be much of a debate if everyone agreed.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Sir J. Stanley) voiced his concerns about the ground given to Milosevic by NATO and the possible closing of the door on independence. It was good to hear the Foreign Secretary's intervention on that point. My right hon. Friend also made an important point about the new arrangements not giving NATO the right of free access across the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the impact that that has on our ability to arrest indicted war criminals. We all want those men, and perhaps women, to be brought to justice, but without the power of arrest and the power to gain access to them, any rights are toothless. My right hon. Friend was right to ask those searching questions and to ask also whether more could have been done to avert war.
As usual, the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) made a contribution that showed his experience. He spoke of the difficulties of alliance diplomacy and brought his experience to bear on some of the key issues, including the legal basis of the action that is taking place—that clearly has to be discussed on a wider stage—and the importance of our relationship with Russia.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) made a moving and powerful contribution, speaking with conviction about the importance of the United Nations and how we have to try to make it work again. In the context of globalisation, multilateral global institutions and their mechanisms have to work more effectively, and we must have a debate about that important matter. As usual, my hon. Friend spoke from his considerable knowledge—knowledge which I wish


I had—of our armed forces, the skill of the British troops, the role that they are playing and some of the challenges that lie ahead.
My hon. Friend suggested some imaginative ways, including twinning, of helping the communities in Kosovo, and spoke words to which we should all listen, about the need to make sure that we commit enough spending to defence, whoever is in government, to ensure that Britain has the resources to enable it to do what it perhaps does better than any country in the world. If that is our contribution to the global debate, let it be so and let us pay the price required to achieve it. I strongly agree with my hon. Friend.

Mr. Bradshaw: The hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) also spoke about the desperate need for a more effective European common foreign and defence policy. Is that aspiration shared by his Front Benchers?

Mr. Streeter: No. It is good to have a debate in which many different views are expressed, but I do not agree with my hon. Friend on that.
The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) has spoken consistently in support of the Government's action throughout the conflict, and rightly called for the KLA to be brought quickly under control. The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell) congratulated the Government and spoke from his experience about the need for more for infantry battalions and engineers. We are always wise to listen to his view on such issues.
The contribution of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) did not surprise us, but I respect the hon. Gentleman personally and he brought value to the debate by introducing another point of view to it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells), the Chairman of the International Development Committee, has been consistent in his view of the diplomacy and military activity that has taken place in the past few months, and he rightly looked ahead to how best to get the refugees home and support them through the winter. I am sure that the Secretary of State will respond to many of the points he made.
The hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell) made powerful points about how and when we intervene—we need to have a debate about that—and spoke of the lessons that we must learn.
The House listened carefully when my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall), who has great personal experience of the Balkans, put to us another point of view. His was a measured contribution to which the House would be wise to listen and he rightly talked of the importance of reaching out to the Yugoslav people. Welcoming Serbia into the greater European family of nations should be a medium-term objective, and we should not forget that Serbs are people too.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) made a brief contribution, raising the question of the KLA, and the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) spoke about the importance of caring for the traumatised children and the host families and made other points about caring for the returning refugees.
The debate has been valuable and it has been a privilege to take part in it. I have three or four points to raise with the Secretary of State, the first of which has been made by many Members. We need to learn the lessons of what has gone on, whether it has been a success or a failure. Conservative Members have called for an inquiry into all that has taken place, but that is not playing party politics; it is simply an attempt to learn what we can do better next time. That is absolutely vital.
I have travelled around the world in the past 12 months—that has been part of my international development portfolio—and I have learned that decisions we make in the west affect the lives of people in the developing world. We need to learn the lessons relating to past decisions about our diplomacy, how we intervene and what we say and do. It is absolutely essential that the Government set up a formal inquiry in due course, so that those vital lessons can be learned.
In particular, I ask the Secretary of State to comment on the role of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. During yesterday's Question Time, we discussed its plan to oversee the return of refugees, and the fact that that plan was already being overwhelmed by the reality on the ground. There is no point in imposing a bureaucratic plan if the operation involved will be clogged up by the thousands who are leaving in advance. We must be flexible, and reflect what is actually happening.
When I was in Albania two weeks ago, I engaged in discussions with senior UNHCR officials who told me that in 1998 a plan had been drawn up to accommodate the possible mass exodus of refugees from Kosovo, and to respond urgently and instantly to the fear that ethnic cleansing would drive hundreds of thousands of refugees across the border. When the horrible eventuality ensued, however, the action plan was nowhere to be found: no one could find it. When the exodus began, the UNHCR was not ready.
I consider that an astonishing tale. It may not be true—certainly I find it hard to believe—but I was told it by senior officials. Perhaps the Secretary of State will comment on it. Let me ask her this: what are the British Government doing to ensure that the UNHCR is radically improved, following all that we have seen over the past few months? I know that this is not our Government's primary responsibility, but I hope that we are taking the lead in improving the performance of the UNHCR, which has a vital role to play in overseeing the support of refugees in Kosovo and the reconstruction of their lives.
Yesterday, I referred to the current return of refugees. We all recognise the need for caution and the danger of mines, but—here we are talking about people who are based in Albania and Macedonia—what kind of mentality can draw up a return plan that suggests that refugees will not start to return in any numbers until three weeks after NATO goes in, and that a further three or four months will elapse before the main body of refugees return? Have these people not spoken to the refugees? All those to whom I spoke in Kukes had only one thing on their minds: to get home as quickly as possible. It is not a bit of good for the UNHCR to say that that is inconvenient or dangerous; it is what the refugees are going to do.
If the UNHCR is to make a valuable contribution, it must have a plan that is in touch with reality. Of course the refugees must be warned about mines, and of course we must do what we can to clear Kosovo of mines;


but these people are going home. Make no mistake about it: when the last Serb forces have withdrawn from Kosovo on Sunday, there will be a mass return, and we must be ready for it. I ask the Secretary of State to seek an urgent meeting with Kofi Annan, and to impress on him the need to overhaul the UNHCR's working practice and capacity.
Can we be confident that adequate food, water and medical supplies are being reserved in preparation for the return of refugees? Is the Secretary of State satisfied that the supplies will be sufficient this weekend to support the hundreds of thousands who are likely to return? Can she also say something about the condition of the Kosovars who did not flee the country, but stayed sheltering in the countryside? What steps are now being taken to meet their urgent medical and other needs? Perhaps those are the people who have suffered most of all.
What is the Department doing to support the demining that is now so vital? What resources are being pumped into that, and will the Secretary of State confirm that the need is urgent? Will she also confirm that humanitarian help will be available to Serb civilians who remain in Kosovo, and that our approach will be simply that humanity is humanity, from whichever ethnic background we come?
Is the United Kingdom still taking refugees each week? If so, when is that phase of our help expected to end? Has it not always been our priority to see people return home?
Will the right hon. Lady comment on the situation at Pristina airport? Is it not true that the Russian presence there is not just a minor inconvenience, or diplomatic incident? Is it not hampering our aid effort because we are unable to get supplies flown in as we would like? Does she think that the matter can be finally resolved with our friends in Russia at this weekend's International Monetary Fund talks?
I was going to make several other points about long-term reconstruction, but I should like to give the Secretary of State plenty of time to respond to the points that have been raised. As I have said, it has been an excellent debate, We are all pleased that NATO has won the war. We commend NATO for that. We all agree that we must now win the peace. We must get the Kosovar Albanians home and begin the long and difficult task of reconstruction so that we can see peace, stability and, in due course, prosperity in the Balkans.

The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): I am grateful to the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) for giving me extra time. I want to respond as fully as I can to the good contributions that have been made. I will try to ensure that we respond in writing to those that I do not manage to reach.
It has been a good debate, although it has been a little too much of a post mortem. We have not got the refugees home. I am not blaming anyone for that, but hon. Members are talking almost as though it is over. In fact, we will have a problem as big as the one we had earlier. It is a welcome problem, but there is still a lot to do. There will be much pain and mess. Many children who were driven out of their homes and into camps will be blown up by mines and unexploded ordnance when they get home, so we should not be complacent about what is left to be done.
There has been broad support in the House for the action. It is notable that people who oppose wars always talk of those who defend military action as jingoists, saying that they wallow in that action. There has been none of that. It has all been with great regret. As the hon. Member for South-West Devon said, it was imperfect good against outrageous evil. We always knew that.
War is never good. It is always better prevented. None of us celebrated the war in Kosovo, but most of us thought that it was absolutely necessary. I say to those who opposed the war: of course we all respect their right to do so, but I did not hear a single one of them say what we should have done to prevent ethnic cleansing from being rewarded. Our failure to act in Bosnia made Milosevic stronger and stronger and more willing to go on in Kosovo. Regrettably, there was no other way. Of course, if we had acted earlier in Bosnia, who knows?—but we did not. We should have stopped Hitler earlier.
The hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) said that we could not have undertaken the D-day landings in the current climate. I agree—we could not have sustained our action in the second world war. We would not have kept on.
There has been carping from the media. They expected instant results and no one to get hurt. During the second world war, they would have said, "Mr. Hitler criticised the bombing from his bunker today." They would have said that the concentration camps were not there when the war began, so they were really our responsibility. Some of that is worrying. Is this country capable now of taking military action when it is necessary to defeat monstrous evil? There are profound lessons to discuss and to learn, but we have a bit of time in which to do so.
The shadow Foreign Secretary, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples), made an impressive and eloquent speech. He talked about the handling of Russia. Clearly, that is a delicate and complicated matter, but we have had contradictory behaviour from Russia. It has co-operated on the UN Security Council resolution, which was important for the world and in resolving the problem—but then came that strange behaviour with its sudden military activity in Pristina.
The most worrying thing is that there might not be an organised Government in Moscow. If the country's decision making is split, that is very worrying for future stability.
It is the view of all those close to the ground that the situation at Pristina airport is not a major problem. It can be handled. It is not stopping aid resources being brought in. Of course, we need to do this delicately. There can be no zone; there can be no partition. We all agree about that, but for the future, we should handle Russia delicately now, and look at the conditions in Russia and the terrible growth in poverty.
Russian men have lost nine years of life expectancy since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The growth of poverty and instability in the country is serious for its people and for the future of us all. We need to give the matter more attention.
The view of our military forces and of NATO forces generally is that most Kosovo Liberation Army members have behaved remarkably responsibly. Furthermore, the United Nations Security Council resolution states that the KLA should demilitarise, not disarm—there is a difference. People will not be able to go around loaded


with arms, but neither does every last scrap of weaponry have to be removed. Talks are in progress to reach an agreement on those issues.
There have been some bad incidents, and some arrests, since KFOR entered Kosovo, but KFOR has been very even-handed in dealing with any abuse, whether it comes from Serb forces or individuals or from the KLA. We hope that we shall be able to reach a sensible settlement on those matters.
Initially, the United Nations will lead the new civilian authorities, and local police forces will have to be established and trained. Many very responsible young men joined the KLA and should be encouraged to become part of the new policing arrangements, so that they have a responsible job in bringing order to their country. We have to make arrangements such as that.
We are very clear that we should try, in every way that we possibly can, to ensure that the Kosovar Serbs are made to feel safe. That is part of the agreement and of everything that we have said. Enormous pressure is being put on the KLA to ensure that there is no victimisation, and KFOR has given great assurances on the matter. Nevertheless, 38,000 Kosovar Serbs have left. Although we regret that, not all the Kosovar Serbs will leave.
We know that, in any exodus, everyone does not leave. There will still be Serbian people in Kosovo, and they will have to be reassured that they are full citizens and are protected absolutely. Those who are guilty of terrible war crimes, as some are, should be dealt with by the International War Crimes Tribunal, not in reprisals. We shall do everything in our power to secure that objective.
The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon asked whether Yugoslav forces have co-operated in providing information on mines and demining. The answer is yes—although, of course, that does not mean that all the mines have been cleared, or that KFOR has detailed reports on all the mines. Nevertheless, Yugoslav forces have co-operated, in accordance with the agreement.
We are also clear that, as long as Milosevic and his regime remain—he is an indicted war criminal, and the regime is deeply corrupt and oppressive—there will be no reconstruction assistance to Serbia. We are equally clear that the moment there is any change of regime, we shall do everything in our power to co-operate with Serbia in helping it to become part of modern, democratic Europe. Although that is the position, if humanitarian assistance is needed, it will be provided; it goes to anyone, regardless of his or her origins. If Serbia has such a need, it will be provided for.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs said, it is very significant that the Orthodox Church leadership has called for Milosevic to step down. Let us really hope he does, as that would be the best thing for the future of the people of Serbia.
The right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) paid tribute to Louise Arbour. I join him in that. She has been responsible for dealing with war crimes not only in former Yugoslavia, but in Rwanda—which is also recovering from terrible genocide, although the international community failed to act in that case. She has done a very fine job, and I am sure that we all wish

her well in her future job. We must, if we can, find someone else in the international system who is as good to take over from her.
My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) had, as she said, to leave the Chamber before the end of the debate. She knows that I have great affection for her, but profoundly disagree with the position that she has taken on the conflict. I should tell her—and everyone else who says that we should not act without United Nations authority—that, if we had waited for such authority, we would not have acted in Kosovo, so that ethnic cleansing would have been rewarded, and territory would have been taken by rape, pillage and the killing of children.
At the United Nations Human Rights Commission hearings, Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, said that he was proud to lead an organisation of sovereign nations, and to live at a time when we have more respect for democracy and human rights than ever before in human history. He also said, however, that, in recent years, there have been three terrible incidents of genocide and ethnic cleansing—in Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda—and that there has now been another one, in Kosovo. He said that for as long as he leads the United Nations, no organisation based on sovereign states can be used as a cloud to allow ethnic cleansing and genocide to go on.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations has said that UN arrangements were imperfect and there had to be a way to deal with such situations. The UN has sensibly taken on responsibilities as soon as possible. It is not good enough to say that we can do nothing in the face of a great evil unless the UN says so. We had to act against forces that were not only evil but preventable and threatening massive and increasing instability in Europe, probably spreading to the territories of the former Soviet Union and creating a danger of continuing war and conflict for our continent. Those who say that we should not have acted without specific UN authorisation disagree with Kofi Annan and are wrong.
Many hon. Members spoke about environmental damage. I have met the head of the UN environmental agency in the past few days. It is going to carry out a survey of Kosovo and Serbia and report to the international community. He said that a quick survey of the Danube had been carried out and the situation was not as bad as some people claim. He is going to do that for the benefit of us all, but he thinks that the reports of terrible environmental degradation are exaggerated.
The right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Sir J. Stanley), a former Minister for the Armed Forces, raised some important issues to which I do not have time to do justice. Some of them relate to the new international arrangements in the post-cold war world, such as what kind of NATO and United Nations we want. Paragraph 11(e) of the Security Council resolution says that the Secretary-General should facilitate
a political process designed to determine Kosovo's future status, taking into account the Rambouillet accords.
That leaves the future status of Kosovo open and it will be decided by the UN. Mr. Milosevic says that he is determined that it will remain part of the former Yugoslavia, but he is not speaking the truth, just as he does not about many other matters.
I agree that the record of arresting war criminals since Bosnia has been very poor. That is partly because of the nature of Republika Srpska and all the difficulties


involved. Milosevic thought that he could get Republika Srpska to be part of his greater Serbia. The situation should become easier if we are wise about settling Kosovo. I cannot believe that the right hon. Gentleman thinks that we should invade Serbia to get the war criminals. Obviously we should get all of them as soon as we can, but the Dayton settlement meant that we have been operating with our arms behind our backs. I think that we shall make faster progress now.

Sir John Stanley: rose—

Clare Short: I am terribly sorry, but I do not have time to give way.
My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, spoke about training journalists. We have been doing that. The World Service has scheduled extra programming. We have been training Kosovar Albanians in the camps, because information is desperately needed there. We have been providing wind-up radios. We shall continue with that work, because access to the truth is an important part of democracy. We are engaging in ever more such programmes across the world and I guarantee that we shall try to expand the work further.
I share in the tribute that the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) paid to the armed forces. When I went to Macedonia, many thousands of refugees were stuck on the border in no man's land, people were dying, babies were being born in the mud and there was a real danger of cholera. They had been there for days. Our armed forces set up a kitchen and cooked 26,000 meals. No one ordered them to do it or provided the money. When I went there I said that I would pay for it, but the armed forces spent money without being asked and ferried all the meals up. Then they started building the camp. It was very moving and I felt enormously proud of them. I am sure that they saved many people from dying. We should always be enormously proud of them.
I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell) for having left the Chamber when they spoke, but I had some things to do. I have been given a report of what they said.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) has consistently taken a position sympathetic to Mr. Milosevic. I profoundly disagree with him. He continues to argue that position, as he has a right to do, but I think that he is deeply wrong. He and many others—John Pilger, Tariq Ali—are so anti-American that they are against what the US does, not against what is wrong. The US has been wrong in the past—

Mr. Wareing: rose—

Clare Short: I cannot give way because of the time constraints. It is morally blind to take one side regardless of what it does. It is profoundly wrong to stand against taking action against ethnic cleansing just because the US is in favour of action. My hon. Friend the Member for West Derby claims that we are all pro-Croatia and Tudjman, but that is not true. The Croatian regime is ethnically oppressive and undemocratic, the economy is

in poor shape, and the people of Croatia will need help in reforming their institutions, so no one here speaks in favour of the situation in that country.
I apologise to some of the hon. Members who spoke because I will not have time to address their comments. I briefly addressed the point made about the KLA by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), but I do not have time to speak at any great length.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell) talked about the need to make progress with European defence co-operation. I ask Conservative Front Benchers not to be so anti-European that they adopt foolish positions. Some 80 per cent. of the air power used was US air power. Europe spends 60 per cent. of what the US spends on defence, but we spend it so ineffectively that we do not have 60 per cent. of its capacity. We must be able to collaborate and use resources more effectively. The nature of war has changed and we need different equipment. We must therefore seek better European defence co-operation.
The overwhelming task now is to get the refugees home in safety. Some of those who were displaced internally are weak and malnourished, but they are not in such bad shape as some people feared. They are under-nourished, but most of them have had some kind of nourishment. The priority is to get food and medical supplies to them and get them home.
As I have said before, we cannot tell the refugees in Macedonia and Albania that they cannot go home. They need information. They need to be advised about where the mines are and what the dangers are. We are undertaking massive mine education campaigns. There have already been some accidents, and I fear that there will be more. However, the refugees are starting to move home. Those who lived near Kukes can see their villages from the border and they want to go home.
The return will be phased, as we have learned from Bosnia. The people who are close and who know they are safe will go early. The young and the fit go home to fix up the house or to find out the situation, and then send for the children and the older people later. Some of the more vulnerable will stay in Macedonia, Albania and here and go back as their families get things ready for them. Then we will be left with the very vulnerable—the children who became separated from their families and the elderly people whose children were killed. They will need special help to get home and we must ensure that provision is made for them.
The return will be messy, but we can support people as they make their own decisions. It will be chaotic and untidy, and the UNHCR is unwise to think that it can control it all. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) on this point. He knows that I respect him greatly, but I must tell him that now is not the time for speaking at length about what went wrong with the UNHCR. It is still in charge of the operation to return people to Kosovo and we must work with it and strengthen it. Things are a bit better now, but there are lessons to be learned when it is all over and we will get on to that job at the appropriate time.
Britain has a capacity to move more quickly than some others do. We have offices in Tirana and Skopje and we shall open an office in Pristina. We can spend our money quickly and we therefore have flexibility. We operate through the most effective agencies we can find to assist


programmes on the ground. We need to examine the specific role Britain can play to make the best contribution we can make, and we will try to make a big contribution on demining.
The military will demine on the routes they will use, but the rest of the country needs to be demined too. We have agreed with the UN Mines Advisory Service—we had a meeting in London—that we will help. The Halo Trust, a British NGO, has started surveying for mines and unexploded ordnance.
We will begin to do the job systematically. I said to the head of the United Nations Environment Programme that the people surveying the mines and those examining the environmental damage should act together and see where the problems are throughout Kosovo and Serbia. I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax that unexploded ordnance is both NATO and Serb, and the mines are all Serb.
We will bring in building materials to enable people instantly to patch up their houses and get into some accommodation, perhaps putting up tents beside the houses to see them through the winter, and then we will move on to more long-term facilitation for rebuilding. Reconstruction will take a long time. The process needs to run seamlessly as people get home and start to rebuild. Wherever possible we want to empower people to solve their own problems rather than doing it for them.
The new civilian authorities will be led by the UN. There is a Secretary-General plan, and we will implement it as soon as possible. A society has to be built from scratch, with schools, hospitals and medical systems, and we have to settle what law will apply. It will not be easy. It will take time and there will be a lot of mess but we must do it as well as possible.
I must say to my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow that there are a lot of drug addicts and drug dealers in Scotland. That is what is wrong with what he said. Scotland Yard may have reported that there are some Albanian criminals in the world, but to speak of people who have been bombed, raped and killed as though they were all criminals is unbearable.
I am humbled by the courage of people who kept their dignity as they were driven out and made to live in camps. Now they are going back and they are determined to rebuild. That does not mean that they are all saints—no people are—but their dignity is humbling and they have a considerable job to do.

Mr. Dalyell: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Clare Short: I am really sorry, but I cannot because I have only a couple of minutes left.
There are special problems because the World Bank cannot lend to Kosovo any more than it can to Montenegro, first, because it can lend only to countries that are members, and, secondly, because of their status as part of the former Yugoslavia. We need to make special

arrangements to ensure that Kosovo and Montenegro get the reconstruction help that they need, and to make up for the fact that the World Bank and the other development banks cannot help them.
The other countries in the region have been absolutely remarkable in their support for the NATO action, in a way that they were not at the time of Bosnia. They have the beacon of modern democratic Europe before their eyes and they desperately want to be a part of it. They know that the old poison of the Balkans—ethnic hatred, separation and attacks—cannot be part of their future if they are to be part of a modern Europe. That gives us a fantastic historical responsibility and opportunity.
The region wants to change and to become part of a modern democratic Europe. We have to help in that process. It will not be easy. The neighbouring countries have not been bombed—people sometimes talk as though they have—but they are in transition from communism and many of them are hardly making the transition. Albania is the poorest country in Europe.
Macedonia complained and complained. It heroically took a lot of refugees but when we said that we would help with money, it did not have the Government systems to tell us how much was needed. We had to send in experts—from the Adam Smith Institute, as it happens—to work out what was needed. Incidentally, the experts told me the other day that they never supported Thatcherism. Macedonia's Government financial systems do not work. Helping the countries to reconstruct is not simply a matter of throwing money around. We need to build democratic societies from scratch. It will not be easy, but it is possible.
Anything less means that all this can happen again. That is the story of the Balkans. We have in our hands the real chance to take the poison and nastiness of ethnic hatred, and the taking of territory by ethnic cleansing, out of the region and to make the Balkans a part of modern Europe. That is a great responsibility and it will take years. We need to work together.
We have had a problem in the conflict, but there is still a major problem in Russia and for the people of Russia.
It being Seven o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Mr. Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I gently say, as a former elected member of the executive of the British-American parliamentary group, that some of us feel a little hurt at just being told that we are anti-American, when our objection is to certain—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that that is a matter for debate, not for the Chair.

LIAISON COMMITTEE

Ordered,
That Mr. Rhodri Morgan be discharged from the Liaison Committee and Dr. Tony Wright be added to the Committee.—[Jane Kennedy.]

Footwear Industry

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Jane Kennedy.]

7 pm

Mr. Phil Sawford: I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Industry for the interest that he has shown in the footwear industry. I welcome the fact that he supports the footwear industry action plan launched in Rossendale last year. I am also grateful for his Department's support of the benchmarking programme between the United Kingdom and Italian footwear industries, and for its efforts in promoting the benefits of British safety footwear.
I am sure that most hon. Members know that footwear is the traditional industry of Northamptonshire. Thousands of people in the county are still employed making shoes. The skills and expertise are part of a proud tradition, and we continue to produce some of the finest shoes in the world. I am told that Northamptonshire produced most of the boots for Cromwell's army, so the tradition goes back some time.

Mr. Phil Hope: He never paid for them.

Mr. Sawford: There is a rumour to that effect, which we shall pursue with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.
Anyone born in the county, as I was, will more than likely have some connection with the footwear trade. Two of my grandparents worked in the footwear industry all their working lives. My parents met in a shoe factory: she heard him clicking, he admired her uppers, and here I am.
I must be one of the few hon. Members who walk into Parliament each day wearing shoes made in their home town by people they know personally. Being Northamptonshire born and bred, I am very proud of that. Also, although it is not a fetish, I notice what other hon. Members wear on their feet. Without being too critical of my colleagues, few of them wear anything as good as a pair of Cheaney's finest when they enter the Chamber. My hon. Friend the Minister visited the factory recently, and I invite him to buy a pair of top-quality shoes made in Desborough. I shall be glad to collect them and deliver them to him.
I want to highlight the successes and opportunities in the industry, and to draw attention to a number of problems and concerns. It is important to set the context. There is no doubt that the industry has declined. In 1979, more than 80,000 people were employed in the British shoe industry. The total is now nearer 20,000. However, the industry is still important. It produces 89 million pairs of shoes a year, with a value of more than £500 million, and almost half the output is exported. Many other industries would be doing well if they could match that.
The industry provides employment for more than 20,000 people, and is a world leader in men's formal footwear and in youth street fashion footwear.

Mr. Hope: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and can tell him that I, too, am wearing a pair of Cheaney's shoes, which I bought from the factory shop in Desborough, so he no longer need bother to look at my feet.
However, I hope that that is not being disloyal to the Dr. Martens factory—

Mr. Paul Stinchcombe: I am wearing a pair of those shoes.

Mr. Hope: My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe) is wearing shoes from that factory, which is in my constituency and also in his. It employs 2,300 people locally and about 3,000 nationwide. It sells 10 million of the 89 million shoes made in the United Kingdom and it has a £280 million turnover. In a recent global survey, Dr. Martens was rated one of the world's 100 best-known brands. I spoke to the managing director today—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. Interventions should be much briefer. If the hon. Gentleman intends to make a speech, he should do so after the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Sawford) has finished his.

Mr. Hope: Will my hon. Friend address concerns about the high rate of the pound, which is affecting exports of Dr. Martens, and import penetration?

Mr. Sawford: My hon. Friend has mentioned Dr. Martens, but there are many well-known names, including Barkers and Loakes. Many small family businesses produce good shoes, but Dr. Martens is perhaps one of the biggest success stories in the shoe industry in Britain. In addition to having a high reputation for our footwear, we have a good reputation for research. The Shoe and Allied Trade Research Association, which the Minister has visited, is at the forefront of testing, innovation, research and development. It deals with the shoe trade in Britain and thousands of companies around the world.
Britain is a world leader in footwear design and teaching. Cordwainer college has an excellent reputation, and the variety of ethnic styles and outrageous designs on show at its Barbican exhibition last year was impressive. Young people are coming through, and our training programmes have much to contribute.
The footwear industry is an important part of my local economy and in the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble), for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe) and for Corby. I am delighted to see all of them behind me. The industry is also important to the national economy. Exports have doubled during the 1990s, and the Department of Trade and Industry has assisted with much-appreciated trade fairs and export promotions.

Ms Sally Keeble: My hon. Friend will know that the famous Church's of Northampton produces excellent shoes. Will he comment on the difficult export position in which both Church's and Griggs find themselves because of trade barriers that certain countries have raised?

Mr. Sawford: That is one of the issues that I had intended to raise. The UK footwear industry is open and competitive. Through good times and bad, we have successfully met the challenge of overseas competition.


However, 85 per cent. of footwear sold in Britain is imported. That is not true of other countries, and many foreign markets are effectively closed to the UK industry. We welcome efforts by the Government to press for a sharp reduction in tariffs, and I ask the Minister to press that case hard during the millennium round of trade negotiations. I hope that he will stick rigidly to the goal of removing all tariffs by 2010.
Talking to manufacturers and employees, I have found that they fear that the UK or the European Union may make concessions on our tariffs while other countries maintain restrictions on our exports. I ask the Minister to keep a watchful eye on negotiations to ensure that market access is fair to all parties. The industry asks only for a fair system and a level playing field, and we should support those aims. I congratulate the National Organisation for Footwear, Leather and Shoe Repairs on its accreditation with the Department for Education and Employment. It is recognised as a national training organisation, and I ask the Minister to join me in welcoming the industry's increased investment in the skills of its employees.
I know that I am asking a lot, but will the Minister also look favourably on any request for support from his Department for any project to upgrade the recruitment and career resources of the industry? There is a perception that the industry is old-fashioned—a sort of sweatshop industry. That is not how it is. It is an industry with a future, a lot of high-tech and opportunities. It is important that we promote the industry in that way to attract the right people to develop their skills and a career within the footwear trade.
I am sure that the Minister knows that China is the world's largest footwear producer. It incorporates many state trading companies within its industry. Proof of dumping and customs fraud by Chinese traders has been found through the European Commission. Will the Minister do his best to ensure that any future trade agreements with China are rigorously fair in both directions?
Mr. Paul Gates, the general president of KFAT—the knitwear, footwear and allied trades union—drew attention to that particular issue this week in Llandudno at the union's national conference. He said:
China imports into the UK some 40 million pairs of footwear. Much of this is produced in modern factories with the Latest Machinery. Indeed, I learned of one factory which is investing $43 million on the latest equipment. No UK company can make this sort of commitment. That is why we are calling for China's entry into the WTO (World Trade Organisation) to be with 'Developed Nation Status'.
It is important for the industry that China's entry is considered and approved, but with that developed nation status. We are not dealing with a third-world economy. When it comes to producing shoes, China has the technology, the modern equipment and the factories. There is no reason to be more generous to China than we need be.
Mr. Gates also called for the whole issue of tariff and non-tariff barriers, which restrict the ability of UK manufacturers to export overseas, to be addressed at the next round of WTO talks at Seattle. I hope that the Minister and his Department will take that point on board.
The industry needs more IT support. Footwear is no more low-tech than any other industry these days. Many companies want to develop their IT, computerisation and, particularly, electronic commerce. Our smaller companies and traditional family businesses in and around Northamptonshire and elsewhere in Britain do not always have the resources and skills to take that forward.

Mr. Stinchcombe: My hon. Friend mentioned small family businesses. Will he join me in expressing concern to the Minister that some of those firms feel that they are over-regulated?

Mr. Sawford: Yes, I think that they do express that view. That has not happened just in the past two years. I know that many of those businesses feel that successive Governments have perhaps regulated them a little too much.
Mr. Gates has called on the Government to work alongside regional development agencies and to recognise the need for positive help and support on IT. I hope that the Minister will note that and provide support if his Department can be of assistance in that direction.
I do not intend to speak for too long, but I hope that in this short debate I have been able to highlight the successes of our footwear industry as well as its challenges and concerns. Yesterday I was interviewed by a television company which said that it wanted to talk about the crisis in the industry. I said that that was not my agenda or how I saw it. That is not what we are talking about here. There are problems in terms of trade agreements and negotiations, and the industry has become depleted since its heyday; but, for all that, we are highlighting successes—we are proud of our industry.
I am most grateful to the Footwear Manufacturers Association and KFAT for helping to prepare me for this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his interest in this important industry. Finally, I thank those people in my constituency and in the rest of Britain who use their skills to make the shoes that many of us wear every day when we come to Parliament.

The Minister for Energy and Industry (Mr. John Battle): It is traditional to compliment hon. Members on winning an Adjournment debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Sawford) on that. However, I want to do more than that. The way in which he used a constituency example—a personal story—not only to champion the excellence of the production skills of a company in his constituency, but to spell out the structural questions relating to a whole sector, was quite remarkable. I enjoyed the personal tone and the lively and interesting way in which he presented the case. It was a model of what Adjournment debates should be.
I notice that my hon. Friends the Members for Corby (Mr. Hope), for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble), for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe) and for Derby, North (Mr. Laxton) are in the Chamber. They were anxious to speak, but, at this time of the evening, were unable to fit in more than one sentence. It is unfortunate that we cannot hold a longer debate in which to raise these matters; they are precisely what we should be talking about in the Chamber.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering and I began the day together in the Chamber, because he switched the place on—as it were—with his question at Trade and Industry questions. Now, he is putting the lights out tonight—what a day. He assiduously represents his constituency in raising these matters.
When I was elected to this place in 1987, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) asked me how I got here. It was somewhat unexpected because I won against the trend. I explained to him that I had traipsed around my constituency, knocking on doors and talking to people. He made the remark, "What makes a good politician is shoe leather". A winning politician is about shoe leather. I think that we could take my hon. Friend's remark especially personally in the case of the footwear industry.
I enjoyed my visit to Cheaney. My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering patiently persisted in urging me to go there, to see one of the United Kingdom's leading manufacturers. From that visit, I learned about the blend of traditional craft skills with the latest high-tech technologies that has transformed what is regarded as a traditional sector, and has shown how that sector can be regenerated and built up for the 21st century. It was a good experience. My hon. Friend invites me to buy a pair of shoes, and I shall be more than happy to do so. If he is willing to act as their transport, he can be my guest. I am happy to purchase a pair of stout shoes, as I shall continue to do a great deal of walking; I shall be glad to do so in a pair of Cheaney's best.
In February 1998, I gave a speech at the footwear liaison action group's first national conference to launch its action plan for the industry and to try to get ahead of the game—not to treat events as a crisis, but to anticipate what we would be up against. The fact that the hon. Friends whom I mentioned are in the Chamber shows that the regional clusters that we talk about in my Department exist. There is a cluster of excellence in the industry that should be supported, and should be given the best assistance that we can provide to meet the challenges of global competitiveness that face industry.
The sector has real strengths: quality, design, innovative products, world-leading flagship brands—Church's, Clarks, Dr. Martens or Cheaney's—and an amazingly strong export performance. There is a positive attitude towards improving the sector's performance, from the trade associations, the business support associations and, of course, the Cordwainer college, which my hon. Friend congratulated. The college is internationally renowned for the design talent of Patrick Cox and others. The list is impressive. It provides a firm foundation that will ensure a successful future for the industry.
Some ideas have already emerged from the action plan. There are developments in relationships with customers—life style clothing retailers, department stores, mail order companies and so on—to build and develop supply chain management. There are benefits from the clustering that aids collaboration between manufacturers, components suppliers and educational establishments; that has already happened in Northamptonshire, providing a model of how to do it. Export markets have been developed, using innovative sales techniques and methodologies.
I hope that high-tech in the industry will also include e-commerce, because that is where the trade of the future will be. That needs to be plugged in to the overall

development. Marketing—especially effective branding—should be used to add value. Changes should be explored to improve adaptability and flexibility to new market demands. Technologies should be adopted that make production more efficient and, indeed, environmentally friendly. I have seen evidence of that in my visits. The industry is pursuing those opportunities enthusiastically, and many manufacturers have taken up the challenge and are well-positioned to break through into the 21st century.
In the time available to me, I shall focus on technology and innovation. We cannot meet the challenge of global competitiveness on low wages: only one company can be the cheapest; everyone else must compete on quality, innovation, new ideas, new processes, new products and new ways of doing things. That involves technology, looking at production methods and management systems, and innovating to meet the needs of the market. Here in the UK, companies in the footwear sector produce some of the highest-quality footwear in the world and have done so for generations. I expect them to do so well into the 21st century.
The British Footwear Association runs an ADAPT project—Quickfoot—to help smaller UK manufacturers adapt to the threats and challenges posed by international competitiveness by offering a series of events and diagnostic support. With the participation of Nottingham Trent university, Cordwainer college, Business Links, the Department of Trade and Industry and Eurocad Projects Ltd., that project has delivered a range of consultative and training events to the smaller companies that make up the majority of the UK footwear industry.
UK footwear manufacturers increasingly use CAD-CAM digital last-making and other high-technology and environmentally friendly applications to ensure that the sector has a positive international future. In 1997, the shoe and allied trades research association, with some support from the DTI's innovation budget, ran a project to develop water-based adhesives for the footwear industry to replace some of the solvent-based adhesives. Such innovation is world class and world leading, and it sends a signal to other sectors to transform traditional manufacturing industries into ones of which we can be proud in the 21st century.
There are several education and training schemes and projects run with DTI support either by the Leicester and County Footwear Manufacturers Association or by the national footwear training organisation, which was recently granted national training organisation status by the Department for Education and Employment. Those schemes are designed to ensure that there is adequate and appropriate training in the sector; to attract youngsters and school leavers and to persuade managers to enter the footwear sector because they have a prosperous and successful future there; and to encourage closer links between companies, schools and colleges, so as to ensure that the right skills are taught and the right imagination, willingness and commitment to the sector instilled in the next generation.
With DTI support, the BFA has launched, here and in 12 overseas markets, the industry's largest-ever marketing exercise. The BFA produced a life style brochure that demonstrates the capacities and capabilities of footwear manufacturers in the made-to-order sector. The brochure was sent to more than 2,000 freshly researched contacts, all of which are potential specifiers of own-label footwear.
The 22 participating companies have started to assemble new marketing methods to ensure a market for their products.
The footwear liaison action group is a partnership between the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department for Education and Employment, the KFAT, Business Link Northamptonshire, the British Footwear Association, the Leicester and County Footwear Manufacturers Association and the Northamptonshire Footwear Manufacturers Association. All have come together to combine, co-ordinate and co-operate, even in the context of competition, to determine when to compete and when to co-operate for the good of the whole sector. They are working together to support the footwear industry.
FLAG's steering committee has consulted many parties on the range of challenges facing the industry and has drawn up an action plan under three main headings. "Education and training" identifies skills shortages and challenges misperceptions of the industry to increase graduate recruitment. "Competitiveness" addresses supply-chain management issues and runs the Footprint project, which is designed to enhance the use of information technology and other high-tech technologies. "Marketing and exports" encourages branding, sets out a benchmarking project looking at Italian footwear companies, and seeks means of enhancing the safety footwear sector. The group has also advanced a number of projects for support from the DTI's innovation budget. Some are already up and running and others are nearing approval and start-up. I hope that they will prove helpful.
The group is responsible for organising national footwear conferences, such as the one held in Rossendale last February. I think there is to be a second conference on 11 November in Northamptonshire. We hope to build around those conferences and add some momentum and dynamism to the whole sector. Companies are certainly making more use of business support organisations in their local areas.
I must move on to the issue of trade. Given the problems and challenges facing the sector, it is absolutely remarkable that footwear manufacturers achieved an export figure of £517 million in 1998. What is the sector up against? It has received assistance from the DTI's support for the exhibitions and seminars abroad scheme and for overseas trade fairs. This relatively small sector is doing very well in winning resources to participate internationally, which speaks volumes for the industry's tenacious and forward-thinking approach.
There are several important issues to consider. The Government acknowledge that the sector has suffered as a result of both high tariffs on footwear exported from the United Kingdom and low tariffs on imported footwear, particularly products from developing countries. However, the United Kingdom will not be acting unilaterally and we want to see other World Trade Organisation members offering reductions in their tariff rates in order to achieve a level playing field. We will work to that end.
Several of my hon. Friends mentioned China. Any complaints of alleged dumping are lodged with the European Commission, which investigates on behalf of all member states, including the United Kingdom. Each case is then considered carefully by the Government. When there are allegations of fraud, we encourage the Commission to investigate. We are fully apprised of the various non-tariff barriers restricting access to the Chinese market, and we are pressing the European Commission—which negotiates on behalf of the United Kingdom and other member states—to address those matters robustly in the continuing negotiations concerning China's accession to the World Trade Organisation. That issue is part of the negotiations and we will continue to press the Commission about it. It is a vital matter for the sector.
I am aware also of the sector's priorities and goals set out in the British Footwear Association's recently published trade policy paper, and we will take full account of them during the World Trade Organisation market access negotiations. That is consistent with the aim of opening up markets fairly and creating a level playing field that will enable this quality sector to flourish. A paper has been submitted arguing that many overseas markets have high tariffs and other market access restrictions, and that there should now be reciprocity. We cannot wait: we must press hard to ensure that happens.
There have been requests for projects to upgrade recruitment and careers resources in the industry. Officials in the textile, clothing and footwear unit will consider on merit any applications for project support, including those involving the innovation project. We anticipate that the national footwear training organisation will make a strong application and, if it fits the usual project criteria, I hope it will be viewed favourably. I can say no more than that in the Chamber. Let us see what can be done.
The point of this debate is to get ahead of the game and anticipate future difficulties. The industry today is facing real difficulties involving China and tariff barriers. However, the WTO and the European Commission are forums for negotiation and we will keep challenging and working on behalf of the sector. The sector has realised that the traditional crafts and skills, honed over generations—which are a pleasure and a delight to see in action—can be blended with new technologies, including information technologies, mechanical equipment technologies and CAD-CAM design. That will lift the sector but not denature traditional crafts. Traditional hands-on crafts can be blended with the best scientific and technological advances to develop and deliver a product that is serviceable and a pleasure to wear.
I cannot think of a more vital industry. Try walking around London or elsewhere in modern Britain without shoes. That is practically impossible. We want to ensure that the British footwear sector is strong. There is a cluster of excellence in the region represented by my hon. Friends, and I am sorry that we cannot debate this matter further tonight. Let us treat this Adjournment debate as the beginning of our conversation.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Seven o'clock.